Paper refuses to cover rodeo with restrictions

Kudos to the management of the Redding, CA Record Searchlight

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/apr/17/why-were-not-covering-the-round-up-rodeo-a-note/

For the first time anyone here can remember, the Record Searchlight today won't have any journalists inside the rodeo arena at the Red Bluff Round-Up.

We have raised serious practical and ethical concerns about the new "ground rules" the Round-Up Association has established to "manage" our coverage, and have received no sign from its leadership or media representatives that they're willing to discuss the matter.

 

First real interview out of college was with a Red Bluff radio station. Guy paid for me to take a Greyhound there and back, and we met at a kickin and a grinnin coffee shop. Not all of California swims in a blue political sea.

 

Was that the station with the oh-so-country call letters: KALF?

 

It's a fuckin' rodeo. They should be so happy to have any coverage, they should let the media ride horses from the parking lot to the arena. And do they really think they're going to hide the facts the next time a bull jumps into the stands?

 

I love the first comment I read:

I think sometimes no media is a good thing...If it was not for the liberal media and some of those idiots on tv shows like Letterman, Obama would have never won the election.

 

Hmmm..... having worked on both sides, I can see both arguments here.

I understand the paper doesn't want to be manipulated and wants the freedom to cover what it deems fit as news, whether it's a charging bull or whatever.

But, as anyone who has ever covered hard news can attest, being a reporter does not give you carte blanche to go wherever, whenever. Not at a crime scene, a fire, or any other news story. Same is true for major league sporting events. There are plenty of areas that are off limits to working media. This being a private, or community, event, the managers have every right to control access as they see fit. So this is hardly the first time such has happened.

It surprises me that the two sides can't reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial. The rodeo obviously benefits from MOST of the coverage --- a bull charging toward spectators being a notable exception. And the paper benefits from being allowed to cover a major community event.

 

you're a cowboy?

 

No, I've been a media relations professional before, however. I doubt the cowboys themselves were even consulted on said policy.

 

This policy is complete bullshit (pun intended).

Media wranglers? At a small rodeo? Has the paper done less than flattering stories on the rodeo in the past or something?

 

Bull.

 

I've been working in papers for 15 years and I have never met a sport more media-UNfriendly than rodeo. Period.