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Whitmer speech dress gets much downstate attention

By now, many readers are aware of the media dust up that took place last week about the clothing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wore to her first State of the State address, specifically her blue dress.

One of the local television stations in that part of the state, Fox 2, did a story following the speech that, in part, cited online comments about Whitmer’s dress, some of which were vulgar and derogatory.

The station was criticized by some for doing the story in the first place. And station representatives have said, among other things, that the story was meant to call out online trolls.

For her part, Whitmer said she has been getting teased for many years. “My mom said ‘hold your head high and don’t let it bother you.’ … I’m tough, I can take it,” she said.

As a practical matter, we believe anything the governor does or doesn’t do while in office is fair game for coverage, even her choice of wardrobe and what others think about that. So the T.V. station was well within its rights in airing the report. That said, we’d argue the bigger — and more compelling — questions emerging from Whitmer’s SOTS was how she plans to underwrite fixing the roads, education, free community college and the rest of her program.

So while the TV station didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, internet trolls, like a lot of what’s online these days, should be ignored.

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