The protesters were objecting to a proposed law that would take away their right to walk around nude in the city of San Francisco. The contingent of journalists on hand to cover that protest outnumbered the protesters. The amount of exposure in the media that the event got was minimal.
Why would so many journalists turn out to cover the nudist
protest and then produce such a limited amount of coverage in the media?
The next day one well known web site which provides aggregate news content used a deceptive headline ("Nude protest turns ugly") to refer to the Wednesday event to draw readers to a slide show that seemed to use images taken elsewhere earlier in the year. The Castro Theater isn't anywhere near the City Hall and we did not see any protesters on bikes, Wednesday.
For those who think this protest exemplifies values that
could only originate in San Francisco, we would suggest that they do some fact
finding on the clothing optional policy for the metropolitan area of "Ile du
Levant."
One young lady tested the journalists' power of observation with an ensemble that consisted of: an old leather aviator's helmet, a pair of shoes, a red neckerchief, dark glasses, a bracelet, two socks that didn't match, and nothing else.
A duck vehicle transporting tourists around San Francisco passed by the noon event as
City Hall and seemed to gain approval of the cause from the passengers.
It was a difficult assignment for the still photographers and video crews because most publishers and managing editors insist that no frontal nudity be shown. When you have a group of nude people milling about, it takes a concerted effort to get images that don't violate the media prejudice against any frontal nudity.
Readers of this column who want to fact check the effort by
Supervisor Scott Wiener to criminalize nudity should do a Google news search
for "San Francisco Wiener measure."
Could the idea of pictures that many journalists want to take and many in the audience want to see, but which get "killed" by prudish (conservative?) media owners be used as a metaphor for the clever management of news stories and political commentary in American Journalism?
If journalists and citizens think that the rich should pay a
fair tax and the good ole boys don't see it that way, which group will the
media owners seek to please? The
politicians might well use tax payers' money to subsidize a trip to a strip
club but the newspaper and TV station owners damn sure are not going to run
images with frontal nudity in the media they own. Perhaps more media hypocrisy will be on
display at the next San Francisco City Hall nude protest which is scheduled
(weather permitting) for noon on Saturday November 17, 2012.
Poet William Blake wrote: "The nakedness of woman is the work of God."
Now the disk jockey will play The Electric Prunes' "I had too much to dream (last night)," the Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense and Peppermints," and Scot McKensie's "San Francisco (Be sure to wear a flower in your hair)." (Yeah all those songs are from 1967 -- so is "San Francisco Nights" by Eric Burden and the Animals. So what?) We have to go buy a new Mayan calendar because our old one is about to become obsolete. Have a "Live for today" type week.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
