Hey Brojos,
Would you ever put something out on your website that said this:
"Media makes up complete lie to take down American hero Alberto Salazar?"
How about this:
"Media makes up complete lie to take down hero African hero Lamine Diack?"
Nope, because
a) you know enough not to believe those scumbags and their powerful employers.
b) Because you're not wedded to those people like sycophants.
c) You would lose the respect of the actual athletes and coaches who know the truth, and you would hate yourself for that betrayal of your professional ethics and the people you supposedly care about
But you would put up this:
"Media makes up complete lie to take down an American hero Ben Carson?"
backed up with
Rush Limbaugh quote
Rojo saying it's his job to entertain and inform
Wejo side-stepping the issue and doing damage control
ridiculing your customers who take exception to this writing and message
This statement is a betrayal of a large portion of your readership, and is a massive social, journalistic and business mistake (many of the people who most appreciate the quality of your best work on stuff like the UVA coach will be deeply offended by what you've written in this thread). I feel for you and deeply hope you make an about-face and offer a sincere apology, given that you've put this headline on your front page.
Given that this type of thing is happening frequently via Rojo/LRC (Houston, Sally Jenkins, etc), and Rojo is publicly congratulating himself for "informing" and "entertaining" with Rush Limbaugh quotes, and Wejo defends him, this is a very sad day for Brojos and the LetsRun brand. I guess it could be an opportunity for change, but I'll believe it when I see it. I hope to see it. Please change this behavior.
I commit to personally boycotting and socially ridiculing LRC editorializing of this ilk until I see significant change, and I hope other readers join me in that. That will include:
*seeking out running news via search engines rather than LRC,
*cutting down my clicks and visits to the site and actively encouraging my social network to do the same,
*promoting other sites and methods for getting news with my friends and associates
*seeking out better websites through which to read about running, and
*actively seeking to support alternative methods of presenting the sport.
Thanks, in advance, for those who say traditional heartless things such as: "Go back to your own country, traitor," "good riddance," "bleeding heart" and the like.
I like LetsRun.com's contributions in many ways. I like tough thought, I like the exuberance for the sport. But I will not stand for what we're seeing in threads like this.
Thanks Brojos, for your insight and your significant contributions to the sport over the years. But these mistakes are ethically inexcusable to me.
-- The basic LRC message, re: GOP candidates?
"Carson says pyramids made to store grains, Jews with guns could have stopped holocaust, earth created several thousand years ago, and he received a scholarship to West Point because of his greatness. Liberal media completely to blame for these outrageous attacks on a hero. Hillary sucks and lies, so Carson lying and generally being a nutbag is totally acceptable for a president. Any media that questions this is liberal rag."
--The basic LRC message, re: Sports coaches?
"Salazar says he's never doped an athlete, that his athletes don't take anything fancy, that he tests testo on his sons to reduce risk of sabotage, that he doesn't abuse TUE's with his top athlete, and that dozens of reports of misbehavior spanning many years from many sources are complete fabrications. Liberal media Epstein and BBC to blame for these outrageous attacks on a hero. Russia cheats, so Salazar and Nike cheating is no big deal. Any media that questions this is liberal rag."
You guys are liberal when it comes to reporting on track. Maybe you're having inner conflict about the fact that you actually appreciate the value of digging deep and thinking deeply, while your political orientations are hell-bent on destroying and degrading deep thought with fear-mongering and race-baiting. You are fully capable of deep investigation with regards to some doping issues, but completely incompetent when it comes to Rush LImbaugh's hot-button topics. This would be fine, if you didn't put it all over your website.
You can make a good contribution to the world while being almost any political orientation. The Ikea leader guy is a neo-Nazi, but he doesn't insist on advertising that in his stores. They don't let him write Heil Hitler on the walls of the damn retail stores. Maybe you guys could figure out how to STFU about anything you hear on Rush Limbaugh, until it's gone through a significant vetting process. For example, you could call a liberal or even moderate friend and discuss the topic before promoting an outrageous thread to the most prominent portion of your otherwise acceptable website.
I feel for you guys trashing your brand by doing things like this. I'm going to break down just one sentence you've written, which happens to be the thread title, which happened to be placed, by you, on your homepage, with your writing in it:
"Media makes up complete lie to take down an American hero Ben Carson"
1. "Media." Nope. One outlet did one project with portions of the project potentially overblown. Many other outlets have praised Carson, given him a free ride, or criticized him very appropriately for lies and idiocy.
2. "makes up complete lie" Nope. Ben Carson made and is making his bed with these embellishments and stupid statements, of which the West Point story is just one of many. People are looking into them and reporting on them, with occasional missteps but by-and-large accurate reports. If anything, Carson, who has no political history, has gotten a relatively free ride until now. He frightens the GOP because a) he's by far the most popular candidate in terms of approval among voters (74%) and b) he's a complete fanatical fundamentalist nut who may make their party look even worse than its already clown-like state of affairs. This man publicly states that the pyramids were built to house grain, and evolution is not real. He's also a freakin brilliant surgeon.
3. "to take down" I mean, sure, if you want to call "investigating and reflecting on what you find" a "take down". Considering you guys frequently engage in take downs that you call journalism (often, rightly), this language comes off as pretty confused as to what a "take down" is. It's not like Carson is going to prison or losing his career. He simply has to answer some questions. Hillary, an amazing liar in her own right, nonetheless withstood 11 hours of questioning by GOP members whose own leader admitted that the committee was partisan and attempting to "take down" Hillary's political momentum.
4. "American hero Ben Carson". So you're a Carson believer, and a believer in the story that the left is always trying to attack the right. Personally, I see the people reporting on Carson to be American heroes, just like I see the people outing Salazar as American heroes. I try to see heroism in everyone, at some level, but I know the gravity of defending a person in power by invoking the term "hero". I know what it would mean to write, publicly, on my own website: "Media makes up complete lie to take down German hero Hitler" vs. something more neutral. One implies some pretty significant and shocking bias toward disturbing propaganda, the other does not. But whatev. I'm sure you can continue to make these kinds of comments without blowback in the long run.
Good luck recruiting new employees and investors to your brand. If I'm one of your rivals, I'm taking screenshots of these writings of yours and leveraging them against you with businesses and contacts within the sport. If I'm one of your employees, I'm looking for better work. If I'm one of your readers, I'm finding someone else to do the same thing you do, without the f****** verbatim Limbaugh propaganda. Sad.