All the nudes that’s fit to print

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/07/2009 (6159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today’s legitimate summertime journalistic topic is: Naked people making news.

I am confronting this controversial issue head-on because — and I could not be more sincere when I say this — I couldn’t find anything else to write about.

Not that this is a problem for modern newspaper professionals. For us, naked people making headlines is a gift from the gods. I say this because most of what we write ends up online.

And, based on my experience, online readers are not so much interested in well-written, informative “think pieces” as they are in timely stories wherein the word “NAKED!!!” appears over and over, usually in big block letters followed by several exclamation marks!!!

This “fact” is of mounting concern to a great many news professionals, causing them to furrow their brows and wring their hands while making that “tsk tsk” sound your piano teacher made when you could not get halfway through Chopsticks without a serious musical error.

In response to these concerns, I would like to issue the following deeply felt statement to our legions of informed online readers: “NAKED!!! NAKED!!! NAKED!!!”

Now that we have finished with the thoughtful portion of today’s column, we can move on to our first group of unclothed people making news, a group I became aware of Monday when I read a story with the headline: “A Naked Grab for World Record Fame.”

According to this story, written by Liz Bowie of the Baltimore Sun, hundreds of people around North America took a stab at getting in the Guinness World Records this Saturday by taking off their clothes and joining the world’s largest serial skinny dip.

In Baltimore, about 95 people — most of these naked people were middle-aged men — disrobed and jumped into an outdoor pool, where one unclad swimmer later explained: “I have always wanted to do this. The only hard part is that I have thighs I am not proud of.”

My initial reaction to this item was “ha ha ha,” but then I realized there was the seed of an idea here. Imagine a new fad diet, wherein people hoping to lose weight got together and ate all their meals with groups of naked fat people. Would that not kill your appetite?

Which brings us to our next example of naked people in the news, an informative story from the Connecticut Post — and if you can’t believe them, who can you believe? — under the headline: “Nude man shows up at dental office days late.”

Is that an excellent headline, or what? The first paragraph states that police arrested a man because he showed up at his dentist’s office naked. That makes perfect sense.

But I found the second paragraph troubling. It stated, and I quote directly: “Police say (the man) also was five days late for his appointment.”

In retrospect, this is not that surprising. Think about it: Would your dentist be more upset if (a) you showed up for an appointment naked; or (b) you were five days late for your checkup.

I do not know your dentist, but I’m pretty sure mine would not care if I were naked or wearing a giant squirrel costume, provided I arrived on time.

There’s more I’d like to say, but we need to move on to our next naked newsmaker, a 50-year-old New York man who was arrested the other week because — and who hasn’t thought of doing this? — he stripped during a US Airways flight and wouldn’t let a flight attendant cover him with a blanket.

Naturally, his fellow passengers were aghast. Just kidding. What his fellow passengers did was take his picture with their cellphone cameras and then post it on the Internet. The story does not state why the man took his clothes off, but we can assume he was probably late for a dental appointment.

And speaking of naked people on airplanes, our final item comes from New Zealand, where the national airline has come up with a cheeky way to get passengers to watch their in-flight safety video — the crew members are wearing nothing except body paint.

If you think I am making this up, you can check out the video, “the Bare Essentials of Safety,” on YouTube, where it has more than four million views.

In this video, which I watched for professional reasons, three cabin staff and a pilot, all in body paint that looks like their uniforms, talk viewers through safety procedures, while their, um, jiggly bits are hidden by strategically positioned arm rests, life jackets and seat belts. (“Excuse me, this is your captain streaking!”)

Sadly, we are out of space today, but as a crusading journalist, I will do my best to keep you abreast of naked people making news this summer.

It may get under your skin, but some things just need to be covered.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

My own

naked

ambition

I promise to be fully clothed Thursday night, July 16, at Chapters Polo Park store, where I will be signing copies of our new book, Bite-Sized Doug, a collection of critter-themed columns. I’ll be signing from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Stop by, buy a book and, please, wear pants.

Thanks!