At a dinner party the other evening I sit next to a young and very attractive lawyer who asks politely (this is Canada, after all) if TV  newsreaders like me need any particular qualifications to read the news.

I blather about four years study at journalism school and years since covering stories as a reporter on radio and TV. And, of course, there's my considerable curiosity, an enquiring mind and an ability to write one word after another in a reasonably coherent fashion.

He listens patiently and when I'd finished asks even more politely "but to read the news you don't have to pass any exams, have a degree or anything like that? Not like a doctor or lawyer? Or plumber?"

"No" I admit "but …"

He interrupts. "And it probably doesn't do any harm that you're gorgeous?" His eyes linger on my cleavage which is particularly spectacular this evening. "And you've got this killer body?"

I laugh nervously. "Thank you, kind sir."

"So actually, anyone who can read English without stumbling or lisping or stuttering or falling down in a dead faint can read the news to me tonight? As long as she or he is good-looking like you?"

"I suppose so but …"

"I mean you don't actually have to know what you're talking about do you? Particularly foreign news? Or financial news? You just have to sound as if you know? Right?"

"Yes, but …"

"Then why should I trust you to tell me what's going on in the world tonight?"

I'm irritated. "Perhaps we could discuss this some other time?" I tell him frostily.

"Your place or mine?"


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

To viewers, he was Uncle Walter.

To other journalists, like me, he was Mr. Cronkite, sir.

When there was little reason to trust anyone in America (Viet Nam, rampant racism), he was the most trusted man in the land.

He wasn't actor-handsome like Peter Jennings. Or driven by demons like Dan Rather. Or seemingly omnipotent like Peter Mansbridge.

He was just the most trustworthy, ethical, decent man who ever anchored a TV newscast.

He was the gold standard in the honourable profession of journalism.

He was Walter Cronkite.

And that's the way it was.


Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Michael Jackson was one of those accursed people who live on the honed and honeyed edge.

He was lost in his own private jungle with a horrifying past, no reality and no tomorrow.

He adorned a magical fantasyland where he was godlike and could do no wrong.

Where power corrupted absolutely and Michael was the blazing centre of the known universe.

Where the law of cause and effect didn’t apply.

Where everybody worshipped the sweet honey of fame and nobody ever acknowledged it’s price.

In such a world there is inevitably a monstrous price to pay.

And, from the very beginning, Michael paid it.

He sold his soul.


Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

I am lying on the Estero Ciego beach of the Sol Club Rio De Luna, located 72 kilometers from the town of Holguin in the Republic of Cuba.

I am drinking a rum with mango juice and have just taken off my bikini top. My breasts suckle the sun and my nipples are hard with warmth and delight. Men find it necessary to make frequent trips to the bar on the other side of me to admire my breasts which, even from this angle, look quite beautiful.The men try not to be obvious when they walk past but they are obvious. I adore my breasts.

None of the other women on this beach look at me or bare their breasts to the sun like me. Most of them are from the frozen North and are unhappy. You can tell from their faces that they feel somehow betrayed, that life has not lived up to their expectations, that the world has not delivered what they deserve.

There are no Americans here because American governments so fear the 11-million people of Cuba that they've blockaded their island for more than forty years. Instead of Americans, the women who come here are from Canada and Germany and France and England and other northern places where the sun has no warmth at this time of year. Compared to the Cubans who serve them at this resort, these women have unimaginable wealth. But they are not happy.
 
Their faces are tight, their mouths thin and their eyes cold. And when they talk to other tourists — and to the Cubans who serve them with great generosity and considerable grace — their voices are abrupt and chilling and without courtesy.
 
These women spend most of their time complaining. It is too hot or too cold. The food is too spicy or too bland. The entertainment is lousy (which happens to be true but, on the other hand, it’s also free).  
 
These women wear ugly, elaborate swimsuits too small for their abundant, cellulite flesh. As a passionate woman myself, I suspect that if they ever knew real passion — the sort of passion that brings unendurable pleasure and, inevitably, le petit mort  — it was long ago and would be too embarrassing to repeat.

I think they should bare their breasts to the sun like me.

So their nipples harden with warmth and delight like mine.

That's what I think.


Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

It's worth reminding ourselves every so often that the Internet and Twitter and so-called citizen journalists haven't changed everything in our world.

In spite of its manifold and manifest problems, the United States still rules most of the globe. Its Middle-Aged-Middle-Class-White-Western-Male-thinking (if not all its skin) still stands astride the earth like a colossus — sword in one hand and the mainstream media clenched tight in the other. As if nothing has changed. Or can change. Ever.
 
Through television, radio, movies, newsmagazines, newspapers and the wire services (and now much of the Internet), the United States has a virtual monopoly of mainstream international information. It dominates the international media just as  — for now  —it still dominates the world.
 
For instance, America’s endless attacks on other countries (Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan to name only the most obvious and public in the past few years) are justified, time after, time by Western journalists who see them as the reasonable actions of “our side” against "the dark side."
 
It’s not surprising. American “official statements” and American reportage of those statements pour into the world’s newsrooms day after day, night after night, in an endless stream of doublespeak, bafflegab and misplaced patriotism.
 
There’s no getting away from it. You watch the Berlin Wall come down on American TV in Helsinki. You see a lone man stand bravely in front of the tanks of Tiananmen Square on American TV in Mauritius. You read about America’s invasion of Iraq in Time Magazine in Johannesburg. You hear about the English princeling's peculiar version of love-talk on American radio while on a beach in Jamaica. You hear the latest horror story from Pakistan through CNN or Fox (more entertainment than journalism) in Canada.
 
After years of this constant battering, journalists everywhere see the world — even their own world — though American eyes, American-think, American Middle-Aged-Middle-Class-White-Western-Male-culture. 

You can’t run.  And there’s nowhere left to hide.
 
Not even Canada.


Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)