UTV frontal coverage of streak angers student runners

When Quadrangle streakers bared all Monday morning during their two -minute run, they expected other students to hang out their windows waiting for them to pass by. They were ready for those who gathered on the junior balcony or in the various campus lounges. They even decorated their backs to get the attention of The Daily Pennsylvanian photographer. But what they were not expecting was a University Television camera, which caught the three women and fifteen men who participated in the annual streak -- from the frontal angle. UTV-13 aired footage of the streak "from every angle" at six different times last night, station President and General Manager Todd Donovan said last night. "It was a wide angle and it was far away," he added. "Nothing graphic was used but no special effects to cover anything up were used either." The film appeared on the news program Tuesday Digest, which originally aired live at 7 p.m. yesterday and was continually aired every two hours last night and into this morning. College freshman Dan Kay filmed the streak. And, as producer and host of The Show, UTV's comedic talk show patterned after David Letterman's The Late Show, Kay will use the footage again Thursday, Feb. 24 during an interview with some of the streakers, Donovan said. "I was just getting any type of shot I could for my television show," Kay said last night. "I won't use a frontal shot that would embarrass or harm anybody. "I consider it a newsworthy item, and my show revolves around humorous and interesting campus events," he added. Several streakers said, though, they were very angry with UTV for filming from the frontal angle. "I'm pretty pissed off actually," Wharton junior Stephen Barry said. "It really kills the whole spirit of the event and it's not the way to keep a good tradition going." "Oh my God!" College junior Caitlin Riley said when she found out about the show. "He had no right to do that!" Riley said Kay promised the streakers he would not use the frontal footage and would only show the interviews he conducted afterwards. Wharton sophomore Clive Brown confirmed Riley's statement. "[The girls] complained and it was showed anyway," he said. "That's really wrong." Barry said the UTV audience differed from the students who came to watch. "The people who came out and watched at seven in the morning were there to cheer us on," he said. "But UTV was just exploiting it." Barry's roommate and College junior Cres Pellecchia also participated in the streak and said the streakers were angry that the cameras were there at all. "As we were running towards the cameras, we were talking about how amazed we were that they were there," he said. "We were upset that anyone videotaped it." The streakers also complained about the effects the taping would have on the streak's future. "It's a Penn tradition and now UTV's actions will scare people off," Pellecchia said. "It might even deter me from doing it again." "I think if they had told us about it beforehand, some people wouldn't have done it," Wharton junior Mark Pan said. And College and Wharton junior Joe Tansey said UTV's taping of the streak changed its traditional purpose and meaning. "I was in the streak two years ago and it was much more anonymous then," he said. "This has changed a lot of what the streak stood for." Despite the negative attitudes of most streakers, Brown said it was really "no big deal." "I'm not going to cry over it or go crazy over it," he said. Several of the streakers said they were considering various responses to UTV's actions. And Riley said that Kay should "watch out." "There are going to be three very angry girls out there," she said. "There's common courtesy involved and UTV violated the complete spirit of the tradition."