Very simply. Ethically.
I just listened to their podcast where they spent much of the opening 30 minutes talking about the bankruptcy and their debt. It was EMBARRASSING. They still don't get it. I think I'm going to have to write a column. I've always liked Kyle and Chris as people but they have made a mistake here and won't apologize for it or admit it. What's scary is they seemingly don't even understand why so many people are outraged.
On the podcast today, their excuse seemed to be that in 2023 they made it clear they weren't big J journalists - they were little j. So that just means they aren't doing investigative reporting - they are trying to make stars and the sport more popular and are sort of like PR hypemen/social media influencers. As if that's a get out of jail card. So what. Lines are blurred all the time in the year 2025. All the time I say sometimes I'm a journalist, sometimes I'm a fan.
NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Even if you are a social media influencer or simply a celebrity, there are still ethical guidelines and FTC requirements. If you are getting paid to do something (or even anything of monetary value), you must disclose it. End of story. No one knew they were getting paid - let alone $275k.
The fact that they said there was a "partnership" in 2024 doesn't mean payment. And even if they said payment in 2024, they'd still need to say it every time they talked about GST this year. And in every post.
And the fact that they were paid shows you how poorly GST was run and out of their league the GST management was. And Chavez inadvertently admitted it without apparently even realizing it.
He said on the podcast today one reason they were excited to do partner with GST as they'd get access to highlights to the races which normally you don't get. CORRECT. You know why you don't normally get rights to highlights ? It's simple because highlight go to the media outlets that pay for the rights.
In this case, GST was paying for Citius and giving them access to the highlights. What a joke. MJ was in way over his head.
Am I and other media people way more upset than most of you? Damn right. Because we paying thousands of dollars to travel and cover these meets and trying to do a better job of it than someone who is being paid and granted insider access without disclosing it. If I'd known I was trying to compete with such a rigged setup, I might have just skipped the meet and watched it fail - like I predicted - from afar.
Repeat after me. DISCLOSURE is everything. And the word never came up one time in 30 minutes of the podcast.
/Rant over.