Sally Jenkins

One of the really likable things about Erin Andrews is that she handles her beauty better than everyone around her. When the frat boys scream inarticulate devotions, or puritan critics scold her for dressing too pretty on the job, or the creeps fixate, she shows just the right amused cool. Self-possession is her main feature as an ESPN reporter. It's as obvious as her beauty and it makes her good in the blaring, pressured chaos of a sideline interview, yet it's been overlooked about her. It strikes me that Erin Andrews, for all that she's been through, can take care of herself.
The audience's preoccupation with Andrews's appearance has long presented her with a series of professional complications, a matrix of trip wires. She works in a visual medium at ESPN that tolerates Tony Siragusa but not an unattractive woman, and requires both to wear makeup. She has to take advantage of her appearance, yet can't appear to use it or she'll be accused of manipulation. She has to be appealing enough so that the participants on the sidelines will respond to her, and yet sharply knowledgeable enough to ask them tough questions in the important moment. This week brings a fresh complication: She has to reassert that she's a professional in control of her own image, while acknowledging that she was victimized by voyeurism.