Rods just curious what do you disagree with? You think it is best to have two routes, the same week with riders needing to choose which one they should do? The huge participation is the one main draws.
RAGBRAI Organizers Split from Register
- Thread starter cyowan
- Start date
Exactly. I would have been fine and actually expected a story on how they screwed up, cancel culture run a muck, yadda yadda yadda and in the end saying “and this is why we will not be firing our staff writer.” That would have been the best move and it doesn’t take a NYC PR firm to figure that out.
I don’t think it will ultimately come down to that. My gut is telling me the Register’s participation has been torpedoed, and there will still be only one ride.
You mention all these bad choices but after their mistake of bringing these old tweets to light, what exactly have they done wrong? They explained themselves repeatedly and extensively. It obviously wasn't enough to pacify people but it wasn't for lack of trying and it's hardly "doubling down" on their part.
As for today, their staff quit. Why is that the Register's fault? Because they wanted to manage the PR? That is 100% their prerogative as both the owner of RAGBRAI and the employer of the event marketing staff.
If an editor isn't ultimately fired, or announces a "retirement" in coming weeks for this, I'd be very surprised. There are buyouts and other face-saving maneuvers involved for executives and those wheels always take longer to turn. 25-year-old reporters don't have that so they're fired by noon the next day.
I find the idea that the Register tried to smear him for the sake of click bait so silly as to be barely worth considering. It's an effusive, over-the-top friendly profile the likes of which almost nobody gets. The Register - like every other media outlet and personality in Iowa and beyond - wanted to bask in his glow. They gain nothing by destroying him and bringing his great, nationwide feelgood story to a screeching halt, which is why they buried it near the end of the story as an afterthought.
Remember...Busch found the tweets too, and someone was going to have to explain why they pulled out. If the Register hadn't reported on it that day, they would have been forced to a day or two later.
Okay, understand. Register has already said they will be going forward with the ride but we will see who the teams and various groups go with. That will be the deciding factor. Wonder if the Iowa bike expo goes on in January still.
I don't see 2 rides happening. The Register's version is dead at this point with the announcement today. With all the backlash and bad PR they have received there is no way they'll be able to scramble to get a team together to plan it plus even if they did pretty sure their ride will be much less attended than this new one. Just read the comments on their FB post and you can see that.
If they dig in on this I don't see it ending well for them.
They’re the local paper. They don’t want to get embarrassed nationally by doing a glowing profile on some kid that’s actually Hitler Youth. The mistake imo was deciding to print it. Printing it really didn’t do much harm in the end, though.
Sorry, didn’t see that story. I still think that may be pushing forward for the sake of posture on the Register’s side. Pretty hard to continue on in the same manner when you just lost your entire staff. Maybe a more likely scenario is that they do a shorter event at a different time.
The irony here is that his campaign almost certainly did much better than it ever would have without the controversy. And now to exact revenge people are going to nuke RAGBRAI, which brings tons of people, media attention and goodwill to Iowa - and oh by the way donates money to communities and charities.
Didnt do too much harm to Carson and his story but it did do harm to the DMR reputation (what was left of one I guess) and surely financially for them too. It was a terrible decision to run that story about his old tweets and even dumber to take the advice of their PR firm to not apologize and admit their mistake. It was not relevant nor newsworthy for them to include that in their profile story and they would have been much better off leaving that out than the mess they have found themselves in now.
They are NOT the local paper.
^ This. The Carson King stuff was just cover. This is business ambition and ego stuff. This is NOT something they cooked up in the last couple of week. The King stuff just gives them more cover and paints them as good guys which maybe they won't have been perceived as w/o latching onto the King angle. But people will eat this up and diss on the Register as to blame. I am not a huge Register fan by any means, mostly because they kinda suck now as a small cog in a cost cutting big conglomerate.
Agree with this. Carson did a great thing and has been treated as such. Register made a bad choice and took a big blow. Things sort of worked like they should.
they’re the paper that’s doing a profile and likely to get hammered if they don’t do their due diligence on a story gone national. Poor choice of words on my part.
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