A continual tilting toward windmills!
The sun rose this morning on a new surf landscape. One where a proud little worker bee from Sao Paulo, Brazil with the letters H and D emblazoned on the nose of his surfboard (what’s HD?) stands above the blonde/bald Adonises. One where we can speak truthfully about things maybe?
I hate to keep beating this drum but just one more time, for clarity’s sake!
Yesterday early, I published details of Mick Fanning’s brother’s death. Through the day Derek and I debated its pertinence before Derek evaporated it in the afternoon and published the wonderful piece What is Newsworthy? documenting why/how we do what we do.
And in the comments a very great discussion took place, one that inspired. The whole reason I published in the first place, even though, it turned my stomach was because I am tired, exhausted even, of the surf media being a dumb ostrich. Anytime something veers into the distasteful or uncomfortable we put our collective head in the sand. It has become patently absurd especially when things are either widely reported externally and/or very very public on social media or elsewhere.
Longtom said it well. “It was bizarre (that day) hearing people giving shout outs to Mick and wondering what the fuck was going on and then watching the whole thing blow up into a huge mainstream story……like every News Bulletin I heard today featured it as the lead story, front page of New Ltd newspapers. Can’t silence something that is news to that extent, no matter how much you want to respect the family. At that point it seems ridiculous, surreal even to try.”
Derek added, succinctly, that part of BeachGrit‘s trouble when it comes to reporting uncomfortable truths is, “the architecture of our site doesn’t help. Our headlines… YELL… and give the impression we’re tap-dancing every time we post…”
Completely true. Still, one of the things I most wanted to do when we founded this little nugget was to be honest about what’s happening. Anti-depressiveness first but truthfulness also even when tawdry second!
Burt Reynolds (welcome Bo “Bandit” Darville!) added, “When you want the idea of exposing the truth to become why people read as opposed to what you feel your individual narrative can give to a story then you’ve stepped a foot wrong in my opinion.”
And he is exactly right. I don’t want to be an ugly tabloid and would never, ever report something personal and private. I have sat on more of those stories than I can count. But, again, if something is widely reported and/or impossible to ignore public then, hell, even if it turns the stomach it flies, in my opinion, because opening up the window and letting air into the stale, ultra-conservative, fearful den that is the current state of the surf has value.
Captain Clark added, ” I personally don’t think dodging the elephant in the room does anyone any good albeit done in the right way. Dodging enables the issue to fester causing regrets.” And boredom. And an utterly skewed perspective. And slow slow death.
So I will keep tilting at this damned windmill unless a super minority says, “Stop it!” And I will point back to this post, the next time, because it is not personal and it is not mean-spirited. The truth is simply nothing to fear.