Vail Would Prefer if You Didn’t Write About Their Skier Deaths
By Rocky Thompson on December 7th, 2009
Last month a 14-year-old girl died in a sad accident at Breckenridge. She lost control and hit a tree, dying of blunt force trauma to the chest, according to all the reports. A blog at Ski Magazine reported on the event and offered condolences, and then the post disappeared.
In a note to the staff, a digital editor said that the post was pulled after executives at Vail Resorts, which owns several resorts, threatened to pull advertising. She advised the staff that they might want to avoid stories about fatal skiing accidents in the future.
Last week National Geographic Adventurer shut down, and their West Coast editor said ad revenue was down 44%. Times are tough, and the threat of losing one of your big accounts over a blog post for something that’s been covered in dozens of other outlets makes it an easy choice. Hell, let’s be honest, no one looks to Ski Magazine for their hard-hitting journalism. The only time I look at it at all is so I can disagree with their list of the Top Ten resorts every year. Taking down the post after getting pressured from an advertiser doesn’t mean they’re The Springfield Shopper, it just confirms that they’re a soft mag filled with glossy pictures and goofy stories. Big surprise. How did The New York Times get that note the digital editor sent to the staff? Looks like one of the writers at Ski is hanging onto those ideas of ‘journalistic integrity’ from J-school.
Media only works when it’s independent. You are only independent if you have enormous (proportionate to expense) revenues. $100 monthly is enormous if your expense is only $60. Enormous revenues only occur when you are dominant in your segment because of readership.
Would that they taught that in J-school! Then so many of my friends would be employed in their career choice, W would have never been president, and all would be well in the world
I did some more research and reporting on this story today. In this case at least, it doesn’t look like an example corporate bullying. Here’s the FULL story http://tr.im/H3on
– Eric Wagnon
Member, North American Snowsports Journalists Association