Open forum

Thoughts on the news business, waning exuberance and a crime story

(Photo credit: Douglas W. Jones/Wikimedia Commons)

Newspapers are often referred to as “the daily miracle”: We start with a clean slate in the morning and by deadline at night, we’ve filled it with news, columns, features and photographs (and ads, hopefully).

In today’s world, there’s no shortage of news. We have many sources, including wire services and our own journalists. But we can’t possibly cover all the news, even if we had the abundant staffing levels of the days when newspapers were considered to be “a licence to print money” and the sounds of hundreds of typewriters could be heard clacking day and night in newsrooms.

As you well know, there has been a lot of bad news in the past four years — especially the past three months. First COVID, then Ukraine and Russia, now Israel and Hamas: all three have ripped at the fabric of our humanity by dividing people and sparking waves of hate in cities around the world. Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October, incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia have been surging in cities far removed from the war that has ensued. Including in Montreal — my city.

While most people can tune out the news or choose to take it in small doses, journalists have to be on top of the news 24/7. As you might imagine, it can wear down even the most veteran of journalists sometimes.

Which is why I haven’t been writing much for this newsletter and others for a while. I find myself mentally exhausted at the end of a work shift and needing some pure escapism, like a cozy mystery with an excellent reader on Audible.com. (I have a thing for stories set Down Under, and the women’s accents!)

There is another reason I haven’t been writing much here, though: there’s not a lot to write about that we haven’t already covered in the hundreds of posts preceding this one. And there’s hasn’t been a lot of major nudism and naturism news in mainstream media to report on, though that may change as formerly liberal countries shift to the so-called right and adopt more conservative lifestyles.

The thing I enjoy doing most for this newsletter is commenting on some of the mainstream news articles about naturism/nudism, particularly on how the writers approach the subject and how the editors play the stories with their headlines and such — being the geeky editor that I am, I guess.

If you’ve been reading here for a long time, you’ve read my disgust with the tabloids and delight with some mainstream magazines and newspapers for their insightful articles. But, in truth, I can’t think of one article in any of those publications that would have been enlightening for experienced naturists and nudists. The majority of mainstream features on naturism/nudism seem to be the “Look at me!” or “Look at them!” variety. They’re about exuberant people who have discovered naturism and have overcome body hangups, with all the do’s and don’ts and tips for novices.

I remember being one of those exuberant people, shouting it from the proverbial rooftops. I wrote about it for my blog, along with many other subjects. And, no surprise, posts on naturism/nudism always drew the most readers. I think there is a fair bit of genuine interest in the subject, but the word “nudism” also brings in readers with other thoughts in mind. Still, it worked well for my blog because it wasn’t the only subject covered there.

This post has actually been good therapy for me tonight. It’s got the juices flowing somewhat, if not the exuberance to write reams of copy on naturism. Indeed, I think the real exuberance comes in the experience, like a naked stroll along a sandy beach on a warm summer day. Away from the computer screen, at one with the natural world. Sigh . . . I don’t think one ever becomes blasé about those precious moments.

That’s what I really love about the many features Fred has written here: We get to share — and see in his photos — some of his precious moments in a part of the world many of us can only dream about (“California dreamin’ /on such a winter’s day”) . . .

OK, there was one story in the news that I had thought about mentioning — and I saw today that our friend Steve on A Comfort of Naturists wrote about it in a post this week. It’s about a 69-year-old man accused of sexual assault of a teenager in a naturist setting. The news coverage I saw was fair. But, like Steve, the story reminded me that naturists and nudists come from all walks of life and stripes, and that even in a social nudism setting we have to be on guard — especially parents.

Does the story besmirch naturism as a whole? Not much, really, considering all the crap that’s going down these days.

As always, the Open forum posts are for members to talk about all things nudism and naturism in the readers’ comments section. Feel free to pick up on what I’ve written, or talk about something else.

A warm welcome to all the newbies!

Cheers

Jillian