RAGBRAI Organizers Split from Register
- Thread starter cyowan
- Start date
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Don't know. I'd assume they didn't lose that network of contacts, so someone is available.
Probably didn't make this move without squaring that away.
I am sure that this will be a major debate for our bike club. Several of the members are friends with the former director.
Team Peske' (beavers) 29 year RAGBRAI vet, lots of people flying off the handle. Craziness in the RAGBRAI world which I sort of live in (& is a pretty good fit with tailgating at football games & the Big XII tourney in KC). Today was certainly a big surprise and really a sad day for those of us who love RAGBRAI, where we spend a week without rules & our best friends.
Think this is a good example of how a NYC pr firm doesnt know how we do things in Iowa and by the Register using them, they sort of broke the local newspaper bond here in Des Moines & across our state.
I'll keep riding bikes, drinking beer & figure it out. I'm not sure the Register can figure it out. Also I heard that Gannett is getting bought & the new guys werent so sure about RAGBRAI. None of us have all of the facts so I'm not going to worry or get to worked up about this.
Maybe we should do a background check on our President. Everything seems so controversial and in many ways terrible. Gotta keep the good vibes rolling and not get caught up in all of the negativity. Lets go get the Taco Texans!
Think this is a good example of how a NYC pr firm doesnt know how we do things in Iowa and by the Register using them, they sort of broke the local newspaper bond here in Des Moines & across our state.
I'll keep riding bikes, drinking beer & figure it out. I'm not sure the Register can figure it out. Also I heard that Gannett is getting bought & the new guys werent so sure about RAGBRAI. None of us have all of the facts so I'm not going to worry or get to worked up about this.
Maybe we should do a background check on our President. Everything seems so controversial and in many ways terrible. Gotta keep the good vibes rolling and not get caught up in all of the negativity. Lets go get the Taco Texans!
Get ready for a big legal battle between RAGBRAI and Iowa's Ride in the coming months. That amount of staff walking away and starting their own? This isn't a ground up startup company trying to compete... this is what has been up to this point, proprietary ideas walking out the door to start their own. I'll be curious to see what, if any, contracts there were with the staff and what content or inner knowledge 'carries over' to the new ride...
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Secondly. What a cluster for the DMR. All they had to do was apologize.
I've steered clear of this to this point since I am in the media. Background checks are good to perform in the correct instances. But what was done here was a reporter going to google and typing in Carson's twitter handle and likely some other derogatory verbiage to see if he posted something like that. Same for any social media the same way. It was deliberate, intentional and didn't have an ounce of good intent when the DMR reporter did it. Routine (for them) or not, it wasn't good journalistic practice.
No doubt they also checked criminal records, that's pretty standard and something our reporters will do on someone or an organization that has negative press surrounding them. I can tell you that our reporters at my station don't go scouring social media accounts for posts from years ago on anyone pertaining to an unrelated, feel good story.
So they found some lowly dirt from when he was a teenager. The next journalistic step should be to ask, "is it relevant to the story?" And the answer is clearly no. Does it further the story in any way. No. Can it do credible damage to your organization if you run it? What do you gain anything by publishing this information? If those answers aren't obvious than the content managers need to have their heads examined.
IF there was some information dug up that showed there could be some fishy or misleading intentions by Carson pertaining to the donations, that's a completely different story. But a couple of tweets from a teenager who is still maturing is hardly that.
This has been very fascinating to see everything unfold the last few weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole situation ends up being a huge case study for the journalism world on what not to do.
/Two Cents Worth (Pun intended)
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Secondly. What a cluster for the DMR. All they had to do was apologize.
I've steered clear of this to this point since I am in the media. Background checks are good to perform in the correct instances. But what was done here was a reporter going to google and typing in Carson's twitter handle and likely some other derogatory verbiage to see if he posted something like that. Same for any social media the same way. It was deliberate, intentional and didn't have an ounce of good intent when the DMR reporter did it. Routine (for them) or not, it wasn't good journalistic practice.
No doubt they also checked criminal records, that's pretty standard and something our reporters will do on someone or an organization that has negative press surrounding them. I can tell you that our reporters at my station don't go scouring social media accounts for posts from years ago on anyone pertaining to an unrelated, feel good story.
So they found some lowly dirt from when he was a teenager. The next journalistic step should be to ask, "is it relevant to the story?" And the answer is clearly no. Does it further the story in any way. No. Can it do credible damage to your organization if you run it? What do you gain anything by publishing this information? If those answers aren't obvious than the content managers need to have their heads examined.
IF there was some information dug up that showed there could be some fishy or misleading intentions by Carson pertaining to the donations, that's a completely different story. But a couple of tweets from a teenager who is still maturing is hardly that.
This has been very fascinating to see everything unfold the last few weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole situation ends up being a huge case study for the journalism world on what not to do.
/Two Cents Worth (Pun intended)
How does my one short sentence make it seem like a major crime? I have no problem with the background check. But putting what was actually found in the story was absolutely a crap thing to do in the name of clicks only. And if you can defend the Registers right or “responsibility” to publish their findings then I don’t see how you can bemoan people’s responses. They don’t have the right to respond with their checkbooks?
agree. You don’t try to destroy almost 50 years of a great ride over the mismanagement of ONE story. This has been coming for a while. And I think it is dishonest and disingenuous for them to say it is all because of the Carson King story and then essentially enlist all RAGBRAI riders to help destroy RAGBRAI. Not for me.
It's totally amazing that one sign at Gameday and a guy asking for beer money has created all of this crazy.. Over 3 million for a childrens hospital, The Register stuff, The Busch light stuff, The Ragbrai stuff, reporters being fired, People calling for the Editor to step down. All because Carson King wanted 20 bucks for Busch light. hahah. Crazy how this country works these days.
This says it all. They were wrong to dig into his past so far, they were wrong to write the story, they were wrong to publish it, but mostly they were wrong for writing several articles and letters tell the rest of the world that they were right and the rest of us were wrong. Just plain stupid.
Last year was my 40th RAGBRAI, and will probably be my last. Sad that it came to this, but this whole situation pretty well mimics the media culture of our country.
You cannot BUY this much promotion that the new sheriff is getting. Same dates, same, same, All free. Expect this ride/website to be franchised in two years. Think "Ohio's Ride", etal Ride Iowa, all the way to the bank.
The one thing that sucks about the new event... The Name.. Ragbrai was a cool name. Even though a lot of people have no idea what it stands for and some don't care. However, the name itself was better than just "The Iowa Ride". They could have came up with a cool name that meant something even if nobody knew what the hell it meant.
Agreed. That's how the conversation was brought up. I was talking about how I loved the ride and they went into the problems they have trying to organize everything. The resources needed to support that many people in such small towns had become problematic. Then you add on top of that, people expecting more and more "support" each year. The bathroom lines are too long, not clean enough, what about showers, power supply for my phone, etc, etc.
I have to stress the conversation around breaking up the ride a bit was all hypotheticals by us discussing what it might take to "save" RAGBRAI. Essentially, if you're one of those people who needs all the support, you're gonna have to pay for it. The problem with that concept though is the fact that is essentially what they try to do now. Only a limited amount of people actually register for the ride, the rest are bandits.
I for one would be a big fan of the self-supported type ride. The concerts and stuff are cool but what percentage of people who "ride" RAGBRAI actually ride their bike across the state? The more and more time I spend there the more I realize most are just there for the party and ride MAYBE 50% of the time. The rest is spent on the bus. Who knows. I'm interested to see where this goes though!
First of all, why were people asking the RAGBRAI director about Carson King? People are dumb.
Second, it was clear this was in the works prior to this.
Third, there will probably be a legal fight bc the director and staff likely worked on route, details etc while also working for RAGBRAI.
Fourth, they are trying to use the charity aspect as PR to push this and also trying to attach their name to King for PR reasons as well. Fact is they are all getting paid and there are lots of costs involved and I doubt there is really much profit from it to give to charity.
Fifth, this guy doesn’t understand 1st amendment rights or he just playing dumb and again using it to justify the move.
Lastly, You can replicate the ride across the state but you can’t replicate the tradition, memories etc tied to RAGBRAI which is why I don’t see this working.
Second, it was clear this was in the works prior to this.
Third, there will probably be a legal fight bc the director and staff likely worked on route, details etc while also working for RAGBRAI.
Fourth, they are trying to use the charity aspect as PR to push this and also trying to attach their name to King for PR reasons as well. Fact is they are all getting paid and there are lots of costs involved and I doubt there is really much profit from it to give to charity.
Fifth, this guy doesn’t understand 1st amendment rights or he just playing dumb and again using it to justify the move.
Lastly, You can replicate the ride across the state but you can’t replicate the tradition, memories etc tied to RAGBRAI which is why I don’t see this working.
How was it clickbait when it was like one paragraph at the end of a story and it wasn’t in the headline of the story at all?
The more I think about this, the more I think this has been a long brewing feud between the organizers and corporate, and the Carson King fiasco became the sympathetic out they’ve been looking for.
There’s entirely too much leg work done to have been put together in the past two weeks
There’s entirely too much leg work done to have been put together in the past two weeks
Lol, I've never been banned dude, you have me confused with somebody else. It's quite comical thought that you think that.
