There's a great discussion about what's private and what's not going on in response to a story posted Tuesday on the Somerville Journal. Seems for 30 years the students at Tufts University have been racing around the Quad naked to celebrate -- who knows, they just do it.

This year, journalist Auditi Guha was there to report and videotape the event. The story, two photos and a video appeared online Tuesday. That led to more than 100 comments, including a request by one of the women in a photo to have her picture removed.

Today, the Journal printed a letter to the editor suggesting the newspaper violated the sanctity of the event by bringing a camera.

Certainly you could argue the event is barely newsworthy. But barely leaves the door open.

The event's size alone (hundreds of runners) might justify coverage. If that many people were gathered at a public rally, the paper would cover it. Public resources are involved. Local firefighters responded to four calls related to the run, according to the paper. Also, as the story states, many Somerville residents have only heard the stories but not actually seen the event.

 

Organized by students, the event is unscheduled and happens late at night. The 2-minute, 45-second video shows the bare butts of hundreds of naked people running, screaming, laughing and singing.

I don't buy the expectation of privacy. If you get naked, join a throng of hundreds and run through a public place, I'm pretty sure that's a public act, designed to get some sort of attention. I don't think the newspaper violated anyone's privacy.