I just got an email about some article that John Redhead was trying to get published by a magazine. Apparently it has cause controversy and I needed to know about it and link to various blogs over the whole thing and highlight the issues.
Well to be honest I just don’t want to fuel a fire that was as predictable as giving matches to pyromaniac in the tinder dry outback of California. It’s John Redhead, he wouldn’t bother to put pen to paper if there wasn’t some axe to grind, person to wind up or group to alienate. Don’t get me wrong I love that stuff but I accept that it’s JR being JR.
Part of the whole thing is apparently the email he received back from the editor. In particular he picked on this quote from JR piece ‘muscled women athletes are not at all feminine’ stating he finds it offensive and misogynistic, as I do. I have quoted it here, totally out of context and there in lies the problem. How can we be expected to have an opinion on something we have not read and to be honest are unlikely to even if it was published. If JR was to write a book about his climbing as Dawes did with ‘Full of Myself” then maybe I’d be keen to read it, but maybe not.
JR was essentially a climber of the 1980’s and his ethical stance was strong if you ignore the placing of a bolt on or near what became the Indian Face, chipping numerous routes on the slate (albeit well). However the article was apparently more about climbing and commercialism. Which I whilst I am sure he has strong opinions about, they aren’t necessarily ones I or others need to here.
Yes, print media is tied to advertisers, so are many of the internet sites. The difference is that if we want a print media for climbing to exist then it is a necessary evil. I am pretty sure the magazine in question only survived once the new editorial team came in reducing the production cost by around 25%.
I write for magazine occasionally and they don’t pay well, but at least they pay. That is only possible because of the advertisers pushing there wears. If you want good writers then you need to pay them.
If you want my opinion having written and advertised online and in print media. In my heart I feel print media is on borrowed time against the online alternatives, as the metrics for online advertising seem much higher than in print for my coaching business.
If you really want the links then say so and I’ll add them, but personally it is a storm in a tea cup. On the plus side the surf was good today!