By Jim Stanford on December 15, 2009
Three times this year (we know of) Vail has been involved in censorship.
Vail Resorts continues to muzzle journalists, at the expense of its own image.
Strong-arming by the Colorado-based behemoth led to the firing last week of Summit Daily News columnist Bob Berwyn. A respected journalist, Berwyn had the temerity to probe ski resorts’ hyping of snowfall and bristled at receiving an angry call afterward from a Vail executive.
The reputation of print publications continues to take a beating as well.
From the N.Y. Times’ Media Decoder blog:
The circumstances that led to [Berwyn's] job loss are full of twists and turns, like a particularly brutal giant slalom course, but let’s just say it involves a large ski resort company, Twitter, secular changes in marketing, along with barometric and advertising pressure. More plainly, his firing suggests that vulnerable publishers, under pressure as the noose on advertising-supported print seems to tighten, are willing to groom away the moguls if that’s what they think the advertiser wants.
In short, Vail pulled its advertising from the paper after Berwyn’s relatively harmless column. The company’s chairman, Rob Katz, called the writer and publisher to complain about the piece, and Berwyn’s subsequent post on Twitter that he “got reamed by the ski co.” was apparently the last straw.
This follows a much-publicized incident last month in which Ski magazine pulled a blog post about a death at Breckenridge, one of Vail’s resorts, under pressure from the ski company. Ski largely got a pass because no one takes a puff-piece glossy seriously.
Media Decoder obtained a memo the editor sent to staff, explaining that advertising concerns forced the move:
“My understanding is that we’re not in a position to stand up for free speech at the expense of dough right now, so, with a queasy stomach, I unpublished it. I suppose it would be prudent for our editors to skip death stories unless there’s a really important reason, so we can avoid this kind of indignity.”
A crumbling print industry further undercuts its own credibility, thereby hastening its demise.
Summit County’s Berwyn, meanwhile, is spending more time skiing and has started a blog, Summit County Citizens Voice, sure to be a good read.
——————————————————
• Vail photographer fired for taking photo of dangling, pantsless skier
(Jan. 7, 2009)
Posted under Economy, Ski Resorts, Sports
this is all ridiculous. even the editors will not stand up for the First Amendment. Yay Capitalism!
I want to respond to your blog because it is not true. First rule of journalism: Get all of the facts and verify those facts.
We in no way threatened or asked for Bob Berwyn to be dismissed. We simply expressed disappointment when very serious allegations about us were made and we had not been contacted beforehand for comment. Since Rob and all of us have worked with Bob many times and thought we had a relationship whereby we could call one another when there was an issue, we thought there was nothing wrong to call him and Jim Morgan to express our disappointment. Bob knows full well that happens every day at every newspaper across the country. We expect the media to hold us accountable, and they do, but that also means that anyone should be able to hold the media accountable, especially when balance and fairness are at issue. We work with journalists every day across Colorado, the country and the globe. There have been many stories written or broadcasted about us that we may not have liked or agreed with, but never have we threatened someone’s position because of our disappointment.
Second, we do not exaggerate snowfall totals. We adhere to the guidelines of measuring and reporting snowfall totals that Colorado Ski Country put together for all of the resorts and we are completely transparent with our reporting – after all, our web cams do not lie. We are unaware of any credible allegations of us misrepresenting snowfall. Furthermore, our guests and employees share real-time, accurate information about snow conditions through social media. Several of our employees did tweet from their personal accounts (which are completely transparent in their profiles about where they live) that our corporate offices were closing early during the big mid-October storm which shut down most of the Front Range for two days – when our ski resorts were not open for the winter. We, like many others in Colorado, enjoy celebrating snow. There’s absolutely nothing inappropriate or disingenuine about that.
Third, our company advertises in numerous local, national and international publications and websites that often say things we don’t like, but that in no way affects our advertising policy with them. What is of serious concern to us is not being treated fairly by misrepresenting facts (and not inclined to correct mistakes) or, even worse, not contacting us at all for comment on stories about us – and especially when this becomes a regular pattern of behavior over time. We hold the media accountable in the same way that we expect to be held accountable.
Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz blogged about what happened, as did the publisher of the Summit Daily News in the paper.
http://news.vailresorts.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1070
As for the link to the story on “Vail photographer fired for taking photo of dangling, pantless skier”, again, you failed to provide all of the facts. A follow-up story ran on Jan. 16 whereby Marty admitted he had been lying. According to Sharpshooters, he was on duty, in uniform and using company equipment – that is why Sharpshooters terminated his employment. We had nothing to do with his termination. Here is a link to the story that you did not provide.
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20090116/NEWS/901169951&parentprofile=search
I would encourage you to consider the facts of this story, not just one person’s account.
Kelly Ladyga
Vail Resorts
@ Vail Flack
pffffffffft.
Facts what are those only opinions around here. Because the facts sometimes ruin the story being made up.
Vail must have its flacks working overtime on damage control.
Two points: First, read Vail CEO Rob Katz’s blog post.
http://news.vailresorts.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1070
It’s hilarious: “It was at that point that we decided to put a temporary hold on our advertising, until we could get a better understanding of what was happening.”
Second, I wrote a follow-up post to the Marty Odom story last winter that explained he had been lying:
http://www.jhunderground.com/2009/01/13/free-speech-and-the-rights-of-photographers-and-bloggers/
I did not include a direct link yesterday because I figured people would find it for themselves, by clicking on the other links or tags, if they desired every word I’ve written on the subject.
One would think that a company used to dealing with “numerous local, national and international publications and websites that often say things we don’t like” would have thicker skin, especially in regard to Berwyn’s original column, which was really just him musing aloud about snowfall and marketing.
This is the quote that I love best from the CEO’s blog:
In reference to immediately pulling advertising:
“We made a business decision due to significant concerns with our business relationship.”
(Translation: “we don’t like what you write, so no more bucks.”
This is called intelligent spin also known as swill. This is not new, and has been happening in the magazine industry long enough to convert most of publishing to fluff.
The story is not about Vail anymore. The story is about why the writer was fired. Give me news JS! What’s the editor’s two cents?
Vile Resorts is a monstrosity. Never forget that ol’ Jer is a nut fallen from that tree. When will a co-op ski resort finally be born of this earth?
PS – More evidence of free press moving away from traditional sources and in to the blogosphere…despite its shortcomings. Kudos JHU.
The fact is that the advertiser-publication relationship is a business one, not a legal one, and an advertiser can withdraw its support whenever it wants, for whatever reason it wants. As long as journalism is a private enterprise, this reality will always affect editorial coverage, whether you’re the New York Times or a ski blog.
Unfortunately the public no longer wants to purchase their journalism and information, which only makes the situation worse.
this comment on snowhugger made me laugh:
“I believe the thing to keep in mind is that no one in the ski industry or public wants to even hear a peep from Broomfield and the money-managers who run the lodging. They are not the ski industry or the area.
Every time an out-of-industry entity gains power, they want to be the rock star, have their name on the releases, and generally pimp themselves as the soul of the resorts.
What the skiers, the industry professionals, and the manufacturers want to hear from are the people who worked their way up through the actual mountains and have the mountain cred to speak on the issues. (Unfortunately, most of these VRI veterans have been fired or downsized in the last 3-4 years as the money-managers cleaned house to make quarterly returns.)
If VRI were my resort group, my rule would be: No news, no phone calls, no marketing programs ever originate from Broomfield. Ever. Let the mountains keep their authenticity. Let the money people deal with stockholders. Don’t imagine that one area of expertise gives you any respect in another.”