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was Cooksey's video the final push that brought he house of cards down? or would it all have gone down with out him publicising it ?, could have BBMX kept going for a few more weeks, or even longer, maybe in the process not paying others,
tough call to make on rumours, either way,
‘Content creators’
Not journalists..
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There has to be a middleground between the established media that are unable to report properly and cooks like Cooksey. If there is a guy/gal who manages to balance that, they will succeed in this industry and we as fans will win on it.
Matthes is in a rock and hard place on this exact one. I’m sure he’d like to drop more stuff but he’s made and done lots of what he can.
Vital Poster: These people should name names.
Also Vital Poster: doesn't name names.
Full hypocrite disclosure: I have been told a lot of stuff about BBMX that hasn't come out yet but I'm not media and I don't break confidence.
Where would Vital be without.... "I know something you don't but I'm not gonna say anything. But I'll say that I know something to make myself look important."
2. you didn't "clean up" for Cooksey - you cleaned up for your own credibility by following up after the fact and reporting what was already out of the bag, and are things i'm going to bet my paycheck you already knew about but wouldn't report it.
look, I don't really care as it's your business, not mine, and you have to handle things your way. This "moto journalism" thing just irks me cause I'm weary of these guys asking question in post race news briefings, but refuse to ask them about anything that is relevant AND often widely known. It's a lot of "kiss the ring, ask the softball questions, and we'll let you talk to our riders throughout the next week" and it's wearisome. At least this Cooksey guy had balls enough to say what he knew to be true while the more well known outlets had their heads in the sand.
Cooksey went for it and for that I give him props. This is the fifth time in three years I heard the team would likely be done, I got a call about it last Monday but until I talked to more people and figured out what had gone sideways this time I wasn’t going to run out and say hey it’s going away, as it may have been another false alarm.
We’ve gone back and forth a few different times about this type of stuff. I’m not sure how I can describe it any differently. I just get frustrated when shots get taken at us about not being journalists and talking down about myself or my staff. We don’t proclaim to be journalists or push a hard hitting agenda. We create content and news stories. In this case I shared a news story with the information I felt I needed to convey what was going on.
In my business I get threats of lawsuits from time to time, mostly from clients who won't or can't pay.
Seems like the scum of society always threaten to use lawsuits as a cudgel to cover up their bullshit.
IF all of this information is accurate about BBMX and what they have done to their employees and contracted racers, then the owners should never again be allowed to field a team with the AMA or Feld or MX Sports.
To allow them do do it again in the future would be tacit approval of what they have done now.
Pit Row
I suppose if you would come out and say "Yeah, I knew about it - I didn't want to talk about it - and you shouldn't expect me to follow up on things you deem NEWS because I value you my relationship with the riders more than much of anything else."
Instead, we get all this shucking and jiving about "Well, I wasn't READY to report it" or "It wasn't really BIG news" or "I do ask questions about press conferences about things that YOU should care about....not about this TMZ shit".
it's just sleight of hand on a journalistic level and it's absolutely one thing that is keeping our sport to the fringes as a sideshow act as there's really no COVERAGE of the news in our sport.
and then GuyB shows up with his standard dismissive "This popcorn is stale" attitude which created a lot of the animosity between users/mods throughout the years.
I'm done with this. I've said what I can. Carry on, and I hope you have a great week, Michael.
People don’t understand how difficult it is to even get media credentials. Unless you are working for one of the larger sites/publications you’re going to have to put in some serious work/networking before you even will get a shot at media credentials. They don’t just hand them out, they look at your website traffic, social media, etc. and you have to hit certain amounts of impressions across all platforms which shows you have a following large enough for them to even allow you access. You also need to make commitments to go to as many rounds as you can.
Next point, bringing up the going to as many rounds as possible that I just mentioned. It is very hard for anyone else besides the main big players to make money in Moto media. Companies send large chunks of advertising dollars on the largest publications leaving not so much for the little guys trying to make it. So the small publications, trying to get in, normally are having to come out of pocket at least a decent amount. It is very expensive for flights, hotels, rental cars, etc. every weekend for 17 SX/12 MX rounds.
After doing everything you can to finally build up a publication/following/coming out of pocket to make it to a lot of rounds, etc. and you finally get access, do you think those guys are going to try and push boundaries? They have a lot of money/time invested just to get to that point because they love the sport so do you think they are willing to risk finally getting to that point and push some buttons that may get them pushed right back out?
The large publications, and the money they have coming in from a lot of companies, want to keep those companies happy. I’m sure they do their best not to ruffle any feathers so they will hopefully have repeat business. These companies usually can afford salaries and will retain guys a lot longer than the smaller publications as well so you probably won’t be seeing them push controversial topics too hard.
The industry is hard on people as well, the little publications that try to make it normally are working M-F 9-5 to help fund their expenses. Travel is brutal with leaving out on Fridays after work, long flights, long work days at the track, long days flying back home on Sunday while doing write ups/editing photos/etc. Living in hotels on the weekends every weekend gets old. When you’re small in the Moto world companies think they can walk all over you as well. I’ve seen people/companies steal photos, never pay, offer care packages for compensation instead of actual money, etc. Do you really think it’s worth it for the little companies to push too hard for that compensation and run the fear of having a bad name thrown out to the other companies? The less they spend the better for their companies but they don’t see that it hurts the small publications (everyone really) and pushes them to a point where it just isn’t worth chasing the dream anymore that they just move on with their lives. Then you’re right back to having the same guys covering the sport who don’t want to ruffle feathers and other smaller guys trying to make it and scared of getting balled because of how hard it is to get there in the first place.
To get anything different you’re going to almost have to have someone that is connected in the sport but not officially in the media. That is about the only way you’ll get some differentiating views than what you’ll see from the normal places because it is too risky for them to push the boundaries too far. From the outside it looks like a big sport/industry but from the inside everyone knows everyone so if you’re trying to make it you need to tread lightly.
Long read but hopefully that helps explain it to people that may not fully understand how difficult it is to even get in the media, let alone stay in the media, and why people may be hesitant to push the limits.
News.
I've witnessed it at a pretty extraordinary and unbelievable level just this last week.
But, some of this lack of credible news is our fault: we don't ask questions before we all run with it and re-tweet or repost it in other corners of our universe.
I think what bends most of us up is that instead of acknowledge the realities for this industry as you posted, our "moto journalism bros" act all offended and clutching their pearls when they are confronted with "WHY DIDNT YOU ASK HIM ABOUT XYZ????" and they say "Cause it's not even news, bro" which is a total cop out.
just be honest!!! When you get beat up for not covering the major news story in our industry, just say "I really can't. They'd blackball us!' instead of "Oh that? It's a total non-issue! (until a competing rag covers it at which point we'll follow up with some sort of report on it to save face)"
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