ProPublica Responds to Alberto Salazar's Response - "Alberto Salazar Disputes Allegations—Some of Which Were Never Made"

ComeOnRojo wrote:

Well Rojo I can say that I am far from impressed with your response. You are on here linking to poorly written British articles saying "the just ripped Salazar's response". Let me quote from the article you linked (again because it supports your biased view)

People. Calm down.

As I was working on the front page last night at like 1 am, I shared with you several articles that I was finding in the British papers which were already out.

Did one of them have some errors in it ? Yes. What does that have to do with anything? What I was trying to show people was the reaction of the British media to the story as they are the ones driving this.

If the BBC and all of the UK wasn't intently into this, you can bet your ass that Salazar and Nike would have ignored it and never issued a response..

I hate to break it to you, but what you or I write in our mom's basement on the messagebaord isn't really important. What the large press writes and public at large think does. That's why I was linking to it.

Oliver Brown writes for the Telegraph. It's the 5th largest paper in the UK. It's circulation is bigger than that of The Washington Post. So imagine if Michael Wilbon was still with the Post and wrote something that scathing. It would certianly deserve mention on the mboard and placement on the front page whether it had mistakes or not.

Remember, Nike is a company that initially still was standing behind Lance Armstrong even after WADA banned him. Public/media perception matters A LOT.

THE IV MAN wrote:

I feel like a lot of this contradiction should be easy to clear up. The whole IV thing... Shouldn't someone have record of whether or not Rupp was administered an IV? If someone came forward with documentation showing that Rupp did or did not have an IV in Beijing, or in Daegu, or anywhere else, that would clear up a lot of these claims. If he hasn't had them, Alberto looks good and it shows Goucher's to be liars. But if he has, then Alberto's the liar and the problems continue. That piece of evidence could be huge, and right now Salazar is the only one who has provided evidence that Rupp hasn't had IVs. Even if they applied for them and didn't get them, then Rupp didn't use them, no rules broken.

Yes. If I received treatment at a major event, it wouldn't be difficult to track down staff, USATF, etc that could verify what I received, even just verbally. In almost each claim there seems to be a disconnect between Salazar's direct evidence and ProPublica's third-party/indirect anonymous source.

hayward102 wrote:

What I think is frustrating, is that Wejo, and particularly Rojo, have continually demonstrated that they will pump and believe any claim against Salazar while seeming to doubt, or adequately consider, counter claims.

If only this were true. I could not be bothered to get any further. I'm going to take a huge risk and assume the rest is like all the rest of the USATF Online Community Coordinator posts.

2/10.

hayward102 wrote:

What I think is frustrating, is that Wejo, and particularly Rojo, have continually demonstrated that they will pump and believe any claim against Salazar while seeming to doubt, or adequately consider, counter claims.

I have a few simple questions for you and the various others complaining about how those two have "handled" the entire issue over the past three weeks. For rhetorical purposes I'll grant you the stipulation that they are hopelessly close-minded and have always been out to get Salazar

Why do you care so much what Weldon and Robert Johnson think or even write about this subject?

Assuming you think that Salazar really has operated entirely within the rules, do you think the Johnsons pushing the idea that he has cheated will somehow result in Salazar being wrongly sanctioned, maybe through a "voodoo doll" effect? Won't a formal USADA investigation clear him? Or does Letsrun.com have operatives in that organization?

Assuming you think that Salazar has not operated entirely within the rules, why should the Johnsons pretend to assign all parties involved an equal level of credibility?

Here we have a coach claiming run experiments to determine how much steroid cream would trigger a doping positive not because he's aiming to push the upper limits of microdosing, but because he's worried about someone sabotaging his athletes. I'm not the only one who has to practically restrain himself from laughing at this. Yet I'm not "frustrated" by the fact that a good many others apparently don't find this idea implausible, or by the fact that a lot of the same people find this less alarming in the greater picture than whom Steve Magness was dating and when and whether beta-adrenergic agonists really enhance athletic performance. I actually find it very entertaining. Why pay to go to the zoo when you can just surf this forum?

Anyway, what is it? Does Letsrun.com really have the potential, in your view, to "drag down" or even "destroy" the sport? Worse than doping or the galactic incompetence of USATF or even Gallowalking?

I call complete BS. The BroJos present themselves as journalists and their home page as news. Everyone knows the MBs are cesspools of misinformation, gossip, lies, slander and an occasional truth. And the BroJos try to claim that they are just "open forums" and maintain a distinction between their "news" and the forums. But then they go on to try and use the MBs to support how they operate their "news"/homepage. They select which stories get highlighted or even selected for their homepage (and often try to claim "they are just reporting what others are saying" - yeah, which ones they select). They write the intros and summaries to many stories on the home page. And as I stated they then use their posts on the forums to justify/advocate/defend their positions and decisions.

It really is a blog - BroJos and others spouting opinions. Yet the BroJos claim they are journalists.

Why does it matter? Because at this time there is obviously a gap in the market between T&F fans/followers and sources of "information" and/or coverage of it. Letsrun so far has attempted to address this need and gotten away with pretty bad journalism. And since there's really not much else, folks come here.

So if you want to put the burden of doing journalism on folks who challenge the "journalists" BroJos I call BS. Either admit that they are biased and promote their agenda or defend their journalism, but don't keep begging the question and try to put the burden on folks asking questions and challenging the BroJos.

hayward102 wrote:

What I think is frustrating, is that Wejo, and particularly Rojo, have continually demonstrated that they will pump and believe any claim against Salazar while seeming to doubt, or adequately consider, counter claims. To me it is clear they want to be a part of a big story, and are hesitant to even consider anything that casts any doubt on the narrative they want. Rojo clearly demonstrated this yesterday, and it is more of the same last night and this morning where they have done nothing but focus on items they think undermine Salazar.

If anything you should be thanking them for providing an open forum where people can make a pro - Salazar argument if they so chose. It's not like LRC is posting all these NOP doping articles and ignoring all the articles that defend Salazar. They're putting up everything about the topic and it just so happens that there are no sources defending Salazar. Only posters on the LRC message boards are defending Salazar. In a sense lets run is defending the Nike Oregon Project. Say "thank you rojo".

Neither party can have it both ways. She said he was unhappy with her weight and gave her cytomel, which made her uncomfortable. Ok. She is implying and now stating that he gave it to her in Match or April due to weight. Salazar provides emails from then March or April to dispute that he was upset with her weight.If I recall correctly, the August emails show she still had Alberto involved in her meds Cytomel despite what she was uncomfortable with in March. So I am a bit confused on 1. when she got the Cytomel. 2. The medical reason why it was wrong in March but Ok later - there may be a good reason, I don't know and 3. why they were upset about interference with the doctor but had AS continue working on that same issue in August. I would clear that up if I was EpsteinThat said, the andro was the most important part of the story. The explanation Of the sabotage test seems odd but we may not hear much more. I think Magness is hurt by the Mayo, pills in magazine story.

Fabricated?? wrote:

I don't understand how you can say AlSal is vindicated on the Cytomel thing. SHE DID say originally when it occured:5 months post-birth. She gave birth in Sep. Five months later is right before Boston. AlSal brings up emails 11 months post-birth at worlds, and shows a doc told him to give her that med on that occassion because she'd had cortisone shots. AlSal hasn't addressed the event she was talking about. So: do you think Kara fabricated the pill bottle with his writing and the pharmacy name? That's a theory I can accept as a possibility, but the issue that she didn't specify when it happened originally isn't correct, and it's probably exactly waht the response tried to do, get people to mix up those events

These are people who have reported/commented on the Salazar allegations through a somewhat skeptical lens:

Robert and Weldon

David Epstein

Ross Tucker

Oliver Brown

Phil Hersh

Ian Herbert

Matt Majendie

Ben Bloom

Chris Chavez

Tim Layden

Are you saying that all of these people are not journalists just because they aren't blindly swallowing Salazar's story?

Do they really? I've seen a lot of people inform them that they're not journalists, but never in response to a claim by one of them that they are in fact journalists. This seems to be an instance of putting a couple of people up on a rickety pedestal just to swat them right off it.

The message board is every bit the shambling travesty you say it is, but I've never seen anyone claim otherwise or say that they visit this place to get solid, balanced, fact-checked information. If someone perpetrated a fatal DoS attack on this forum, it wouldn't even get a eulogy or a death notice. It would be buried in an Internet pauper's grave.

I think they do a great job on the (admittedly badly organized and unseemly) front page. But if Letsrun went dark five minutes from now, I would have no trouble whatsoever continuing to find good information about track and field and distance running. No one should.

I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm not defending what the Johnsons write or even addressing it. I'm merely asking why their opinions matter so much to certain people -- something you've addressed above, albeit to a limited extent and not convincingly.

My sense is that a lot of people are just pissed off that the topic of doping even has to come up. They don't want to hear about it. They don't like the people behind it, but they grudgingly accept it as a reality that they would just as soon not be mentioned at all, so they lash out at the Johnsons, who in some sense actually catalyze the process by keeping in place the ability to lash out anonymously and under a countless number of handles. These frustrated souls are like people who enjoy watching dog and horse racing who clap their hands over their ears whenever someone starts talking about the grim realities of these industries' effects on the animals.

But, maybe it's not this at all, and people really do think that the Johnsons are obligated to agree with whatever mob is shouting the loudest about a given issue.

Rojo please cite source for Telegraph v WaPost circulation. Assume that would be print circulation. But the Post's digital circulation is 3x that of the Telegraph's (see

).

Though that's really beside the point because whereas the British press and circulation wars are closely associated with the amount of tabloid/gossip journalism (including placing pics of bare breasted women in their Sunday papers), the Post and other reputable newspapers/media in the US haven't seen such lack of journalistic integrity. I don't necessarily include the Telegraph in the bottom of the UK media barrel, they certainly aren't beyond participating in a feeding frenzy to battle competition.

But, to the original charges: RoJo show me where on this website "news" on home page or within the gossip forums have you spent any time considering any of the evidence presented by Salazar that refutes the ProPublica and associated story lines? Seems everything you comment on or dedicate time to is anti-Salazar.

Don't hide behind "I was up late" or "I'm working so hard". You/your site seems to have an agenda of attacking Salazar/NOP which has impacts on people's reputations and livelihoods

If you stop claiming you are a journalist, I'll say fine. Call yourself a blogger, which is what you/your site seems to be. But don't complain when people challenge that all of your "journalism" is advocating your position.

This

No, as none of those other people you cite maintain that they have a "news" website and a separate "open forum". The challenge was to Rojo (and the BroJos more generally) that he tries to pretend that there is really any difference between what and how he places info on the home page and how he uses the forums to try to support his front page decisions, particularly as it relates to this story. No one else you list above is pretending they are anything but commentators or journalists. The BroJos are bloggers generally and specifically as it pertains to this issue.

I want to make sure I have this straight.

People we can trust

Salazar

Ken Goe

Toni Reavis

Rupp's parents

Centrowitz

Mo Farah

Justin Gatlin

People we can't trust

Brojos

Anyone who has ever written for a paper in the UK

Anyone who used to run for NOP but doesn't anymore, except Luke Puskedra

Anyone who coached for the NOP but doesn't anymore

Anyone who did massages for the NOP but doesn't anymore

Phil Hersh

Chris Chavez

Ross Tucker

Vin Lananna

Don Catlin

People who apparently aren't aware that there's a huge news story going on involving Salazar

Flotrack

Galen Rupp

Does that about cover it?

Don't expect too much wrote:

But, to the original charges: RoJo show me where on this website "news" on home page or within the gossip forums have you spent any time considering any of the evidence presented by Salazar that refutes the ProPublica and associated story lines? Seems everything you comment on or dedicate time to is anti-Salazar.

Where exactly are all the pro-Salazar stories that he's missing? The only source to come out in defense of Alberto Salazar so far is Alberto Salazar and his open letter is the quote of the day top news link on the homepage. RoJo can only link stories that have been written.

No one expects the BroJos to follow whatever the mob is shouting loudly (though they do seem to be the mob leaders on this issue). What a complete f'ing red herring to drop as your final line.

What many are challenging is the fact that there doesn't to be single instance of the BroJos writing on this subject where they take seriously or consider anything Salazar or others have presented that challenges or calls into question the ProPublica/BBC storyline. It seems that without fail the BroJos have tried to pump anything that could be seen as supporting - reflexively - the Propubica/BBC storyline.

Stop the garbage that to challenge the BroJos equals that they must accept everything Salazar or the mob or whoever says.

Stop Pre, I mean the insanity wrote:

What many are challenging is the fact that there doesn't to be single instance of the BroJos writing on this subject where they take seriously or consider anything Salazar or others have presented that challenges or calls into question the ProPublica/BBC storyline. It seems that without fail the BroJos have tried to pump anything that could be seen as supporting - reflexively - the Propubica/BBC storyline.

I took it seriously when Alberto Salazar claimed that he was running the androgel experiments in an effort to pre-empt sabotage attempts by Justin Gatlin's massage therapist. The serious conclusion that I draw from his claim is that he is either A) lying or B) crazy.

Way to ignore the posters question, where is it that the BroJos have shown any consideration of Salazar's response except to challenge it?

This isn't about trust (btw, how the heck did you put Vin in the category you picked for him?) - it's about the pretense that the BroJos have anything but an agenda here to attack Salazar.

Maybe I am reading too much into how things are presented but Salazar just "releases a statement" and this guys article "rips Salazar's response" to me that implies a bias. Why would your link to an error filed article have in article that it rips Salazar's response? Would you have ever considered putting a title in the link to Salazar's response "Salazar rips Epstein and Magness allegations" To answer those that why do people care what Rojo/Wejo think? Well because I enjoy the site, have respected their reporting (until the handling of this) and I guess I expected more.

Are you really this confused?

To this day in history, apart from the BBC "Panorama" program, every significant story that I know of in the news media about the NOP's recent problems was written by David Epstein, Matt Lawton or someone in the UK press, and every one of them dealt with allegations brought against Salazar, who was refusing to say anything. Thus, every story was ostensibly an "anti-Alberto" story. Had the Johnsons wanted to post links to "pro-Alberto" news items during this time, they would have found nothing to link to outside of Portland.

When Salazar finally decided to break his silence, he of course chose the most painless route -- a non-interactive online salvo that afforded him the greatest level of control possible. (I'm not alone in thinking he would have come across as significantly more credible had he given a TV interview or talked to a reporter, even had it been the reporter serving as his de facto press secretary in the Oregonian.)

Anyway, this only happened yesterday, yet you're already complaining that the Johnsons haven't given front-page space to Salazar's "evidence," which, in your view, "refutes" the stories about Salazar, apparently wholesale. You say, "Don't hide behind 'I was up late' or 'I'm working so hard'. You/your site seems to have an agenda of attacking Salazar/NOP which has impacts on people's reputations and livelihoods."[/quote] I can't connect the dots between the Johnsons supposedly having a focused mission to unravel the NOP and their not needing to sleep or do any work. In the real world, when someone says "I'd like to get some sleep in the next 24 hours," it's not generally regarded as excuse-mongering. You also don't seem concerned about the impact of Salazar's searing words on his targets' livelihoods -- and I'm not saying that you should be, but you're the one who seems to believe that this story must have two perfectly balanced sides to it.

Also, what if, heaven forbid, they conclude that what Salazar posted was little more than posturing, blustering, and personal attacks and decide to write that instead of something you prefer them to write? A lot of people will agree with them if they do. Will you then post with even more disgust on the forum, perhaps writing a "resignation letter" for emphasis?

You just gave Robert an easy way out. I don't think that he has ever declared that he's a journalist. Regardless, I somehow don't think that if he says "Okay, I'm just a blogger" and continues to write things about the NOP you disagree with, you will "say fine." You'll express just as much disapproval as before, just not using the same handle.