Why The Media is Failing

(And no, it’s not the Internet’s fault)

I recently found myself in a little hot water. Without naming names, or going into specifics, I wrote a story that was deemed unacceptable by the parties involved. This is of course, not the first time this has happened (nor will it be the last), as I run a website that pokes fun at just about everything. But this time, the offended party happened to owe us money. So upon a threat to withhold money owed, I initially removed the post. Screw it, I got bills to pay. After a bit of thought though I realized, the money in question wasn’t nearly enough, and frankly that went against everything I stand for, so I put it back up.

Then I received a panicked phone call from someone who genuinely seemed to feel their job was in jeopardy over said post, and although I explained that though their ad contract wasn’t worth it to me, I am not a monster (and the story was old news anyway) so I again removed it. Of course, it had already found it’s way to another blog at that point, because well, that’s just the nature of the internet.

But the whole situation illustrates the exact reason the media is failing, and it’s the same reason we’ll probably never get universal health care. Corporations (or in this case advertisers) control everything. With YoBeat, I put up a little bit of a fight, because we’re small enough that I can, but when you run a magazine, newspaper, or even website, with a staff and large overhead, you certainly can’t say no to someone who is paying those bills. Or at least, that’s how it seems.

What happens is pretty soon you’re only reading what the companies want you to read. If that’s what the readers wanted though, there would be no magazines at all. Everyone would be content and excited to flip through catalogs to get their news and information (when of course, they can’t get online.) But if things don’t change, (the American media needs how to make subscriptions the primary source of income as they do in Europe) pretty soon all we’ll have left are catalogs, so you better learn to love them!

Of course, you can try to blame it on the internet. People don’t need magazines and newspapers because there are a million websites just giving information and entertainment away for free! But the reality is the internet is full of useless information and terrible blogs. If you want quality information, you are most likely to find it on a site that is run like a media business, meaning, they are reliant on advertising to pay the bills. Believe it or not, it still costs money to produce content and if (college) educated and informed people aren’t doing it, it’s not going to resemble anything near journalism. I went to J school, so I can tell you, even I (who knows everything), learned a thing or two there (including the right to fair comment and criticism.)

The other big problem with the online media is it’s easily bought (but more easily disguised.) In the old media, advertorials have always been frowned upon, and when they are done, clearly marked. On YoBeat we have one sponsored feature (well, we did.) When the agreement was first reached, the plan was to host a banner ad for the company alongside the column, but when it launched, they decided they no longer wanted the ad attached to the content. I explained (in sales terms) that this is what they were paying for and they eventually agreed. Honestly though, even with the permanent banner, it was not made nearly clear enough that the content is on the site only because they are paying for it to be there. But it’s the Internet, so no one seems to care. Since I care, I have added one line to each column: This column brought to you by: and it makes me feel much better.

It will also hopefully save me an $11,000 fine, as the FTC just announced new regulations requiring even bloggers to disclose any gifts or payments they receive for promoting a product. A few of the bloggers I know have expressed concern over the matter, the more honest ones actually going back to make sure they divulged which products they got for free. But most bloggers I know don’t care. Is the FTC really going to go after small action sports blogs because they got a free snowboard? Some how I doubt it, but you know what? It would be great if they did. And while they are at it, crack down on the print magazines as well.

Because I work in snowboarding, no one seems to care about any of the ethics usually involved in the media. It’s not exactly world ending, you know. But ethics and quality journalism aside, the overall content of quality is suffering because it is paid for by people who think that entitles them to dictate what the content is (or is not.) Because a brand wants to send its team of rookies into the backcountry instead of experienced riders who can actually ride the stuff, the photos suffer as does the overall quality of the feature. Stories that everyone seems to be enjoying (or at least are stirring things up) get taken down because someone owes money. And it continues like this until the only things left are the advertisements themselves. Enjoy!

  1. well said. seems that the companys u would like to review or talk about are usually the big money ones who have ties in everything you do.

  2. cory

    It makes me sick that that article caused so much shit. I have absolutely no chip on my shoulder about Burton. I think they are a great company, BUT… making such a big deal out of that post makes me hate snowboarding. Fucking crybabies.

  3. carlito brigante

    if it’s the article i think it is, wow. the article is actually pretty tame, i mean it comes from a critical point of view but never really says anything too bad.

  4. Get over yourself Brooke. You think you’re the gonzo journalist of our time and industry or something?? The fact of the matter is…you were generously invited to a private affair. One reserved for employees and friends. Not only did you attend and consume everything in sight on their dime. But then you have the audacity to shit on it all. That’s not free speech…that’s bad taste. You snooped around their house and shot crappy photos of what you thought to be decadent and “recession-proof”. Eff you for taking someone’s personal invite and degrading it in such a trashy manner. How the eff would you like it if your family invited someone to a family reunion of the old Geery clan…then they shot a bunch of photos (shitty out of focus ones at that) and called you all porkers and took snapshots of your overloaded fridge and your pantries that are busting at the seams.

    Panicked phone call…wow you’re not being modest now are you. You really think that your shenanigans and bullshit writing is enough to get someone fired?

  5. Hi Anonymous commenter! First off, thanks for reading my post, and taking the time to go through back YoBeat posts and leave me spiteful hate comments on there as well! I agree, my story was completely pointless and irrelevant, as most things on YoBeat are, and it would have be quickly forgotten had no one raised a stink about it. But being a traffic whore, and very opinionated, why not keep it rolling!? Again, thanks for doing so much research on me, but now that you’ve officially decided I am a worthless hack, you don’t have to read anymore! Have a super day at 80 Industrial parkway.

  6. Zimmerman

    Step One: Get a job at the High School on 80 Industrial Parkway and drink the Kool-Aid liberally.

    Step Two: Make an appointment to have your sarcasm detector and sense of humor surgically removed.

  7. Really like the post. After working for a social media company for several years, I definitely saw the blog world go from honest reviews to materialism pretty quickly. A blog that used to be about SOMETHING turned into a regurgitation of product information. I think there are ways to do honest posts about products, but you have to do so in a way does not jeopardize your writing’s integrity.

  8. Oh wait…what? Are we talking anonymity here? Maybe you should have taken your own advice and revealed yourself & your intentions to everyone at the party as you were stuffing your face, tipping back free beers and shooting shitty photos. Maybe you should have revealed that your intent was to take a steaming dump on Jake’s party via your blog. Or better yet, maybe I should create 3 blogs like you to voice my not-so-anonymous opinions. A personal blog to feed & satisfy my own hypocrisy. One to satisfy my unstoppable hunger…yeah I’ve seen your food blog, and one to help pay for it all by suckling at the teet of the snow industry. Yobeat is funny and I’m a fan, so don’t write me off that I’ve deemed you a hack. And research, please, so modest. You run 3 blogs, there’s enough info on you to write for days and days with zero effort or research. It’s your personal sound-off and follow up to it that’s weak sauce. And p.s. the stink isn’t about the story itself…it’s about the lack of taste & regard on the author’s part. If it’s so quickly forgotten, then why write it? Your intent was and will continue to be to put shit out there that gets people riled up, and why not, I certainly can’t blame you for that, except for the fact that you did it at a private affair in someone’s home you classless media monger. Stick to what you’re good at. Go bother some skiers or something instead of ostracizing yourself from an industry that probably doesn’t like you to begin with.

  9. kelly

    I would have left it up… maybe that’s why we hardly make any $.

  10. where would snowboading be if not for the throngs of highly impressionable and uncharismatic followers with extreme brand loyalty and lots of disposable income (who are clearly being forcefed outraged opinions on this matter via interoffice email)???????

  11. Apparently when Burton figured out they needed to have an online presence a few weeks ago (ten years late to the game) they failed to tell their employees, such as the douchebag above, that anonymous comments are not anonymous at all, and that comment blatantly came from Burton’s IP address. Way to further tarnish a faltering brand!

    Companies like Burton have been running the media since these sports started and it’s about time they get called out public for it.

    That original story was not at all embarrassing to Burton, but this whole thing sure as shit is. And I don’t even like snowboarding.

  12. Honestly, if it’s so easy to find out everything you need to know about someone via their blogs… why would you expect anything different when inviting them to your party?
    Maybe it’s because I went to j-school, but it’s always seemed common knowledge to me that there’s no such thing as “off-the-record.”
    And seriously, the article was sarcastic, but it didn’t denigrate anyone or anything at Burton. As has been said before, this would have just been another article to come and go on YoBeat until Burton got all sensitive and started trying to push people around.

  13. trichards

    see this is fucked, cause that whole story on the portapotties and the recession hitting jakes tunnel of love wasnt even a good/funny story to begin with. but now its funny. the real funny part is the ip address leading back to burton, and someone getting butthurt for someone else’s sanctity being violated that they more likely than not, have only seen around the snack machines or during morale building appearances. i personally love jake, i think hes a class act, and i also know that he can talk shit with the best of them therefore i dont really think jake gives two squirts of piss about brooke the wakeskaters story on snacks in the carpenter garage, but rather someone who takes their job a little to seriously over at the awesome factory. http://www.ilovetimezimmerman.com/tr

  14. So not only does Souney shoot photos, but he’s an internet detective as well!!! Wow! Someone knows how to use Google analytics and get a list of IP addresses for their friend’s blog…how nice of you Souney. Maybe Brooke will take you out to a free lunch courtesy of her eating blog. Just make sure you mention that the lunch was free and where it came from or the FTC will come get you for not disclosing such info!

    Ten years late to the game huh? Really?? It must be because all them other brands have had such banger websites over the last decade right? Oh i forgot, Rome started the internet, or was it Grenade? No it was them dudes at Ride or better yet it was Lib Tech and their banana pickle boards that started having websites over the worldwidewaste, and then blogging about it too.

    And you’re right, the original story was not embarrassing at all to Burton and I wish Brooke wasn’t such a tender-foot for having pulled it off Yobeat. But such is the case when you’re suckling at the teet of the industry to pay your bills. You pay to play. Or better said, other people pay you to play (further evidenced by your free lunch schemes and whatever other plots & scams you got up your sleeve via your blogs) However, in this case it would appear that Brooke wasn’t playing nice and someone might have taken offense, but who knows and who cares. I don’t, at least not about Brooke, yobeat, or their revenue stream and how it may or may not be influenced by her content, and/or her advertisers. The story was only embarrassing to her, her photos, and her writing.

    It has nothing to do with sarcasm, or sense of humor. I can’t stress this enough; it’s the simple fact that Brooke was invited into someone’s private home for a party usually reserved for employees, family & friends. It’s not like she went to Burton’s SIA booth in Vegas and wrote some despicable shit about it. Go to town on that one if you want. It’s not like she wrote a post about how much she thought the US OPEN sucked, again sound off all you like as it is your obvious right to do so. She was invited into their house…do you get that everyone??? Their private home where they live and raise their kids. Not some bullshit mansion where they host extravagant parties. And she had the nerve to spit in their face, but only after the fact, only after she ate, drank, snooped around for a good “incriminating” photo or two and partook in all the festivities. If you had a statement to make about that party you should have done it by leaving as soon as you got there. As soon as things seemed a little too “decadent” for you, you should have split and not let the door hit your blogging ass on the way out. Then you could honorably feel free to write anything and everything you want you hypocrite.

  15. So you didn’t call bullshit on me at all then, Mr. Burton, and since you are too much of a pussy to use your real name while dragging your companies public image through the mud, we’ll just assume publicly that you’re in fact, Jake Burton, at least until you’re fired.

    I mean, If I go dig through the shit you’ve talked on YoBeat the last few days from Burton’s IP Address while you should actually be doing your job, maybe we can achieve that firing after all? Until then we’ll just assume it’s Jake Burton talking all the shit and dragging his own company through the mud.

    If you hold a party at your house, invite the media, send out invitations in the form of a fucking postcard to said media (making it out to be some kind of star-studded-party-of-the-century, you are INVITING them. Why else would the media travel across the country. They have parties on the West Coast too. And they’re not to fucking pretentious to let them be written about. As Ian pointed out, that’s what journalists do.

    And I already go to every one of those lunches for the Lunch on Hawthorne blog. It was my idea. And we pay for every one of them.

    Again, nice job publicly dragging Burton through the mud. You created this shit storm.

  16. This. This is funny. The article was kind of a mini rant that would make most in corporate America think: “OK, next year give Geerey a well lit porta potty and some metamucil so everything goes smoothly” Better yet if Burton had it’s act together they would have sent a flashlight and roll of toilet paper to Brooke with an invite to next years bash.

    As for being owed money… I just find it rad Brooke makes anything in the digital medium as the ad market blows. Good onya Brooke. Ok, enough of this shart-like comment back to the crapper.

  17. Mike

    Interesting. Some little tongue in cheek description of a party for tons of “friends and family” has created such a ruckus.

    The fact that a journo was invited to someone’s house for a party seems benign at best. If the invitee didn’t post about the toilet situation, maybe this whole thing wouldn’t be blown out of proportion. It seems to me that this is a humorous description of a festive event with minor inconveniences. The fact that the Burtons have a nice house and can throw a big party just leads me to believe that they have been able to manage their finances better than I or most others have in this economy. Maybe the fault lies in the selection of the invited guest list rather than the one who wrote about said party.

    Where in the story did Brooke shit on everything? I’ve done much worse in my magazine and even my advertisers found the funny in it all. Did she take advantage of her invitation by partaking in waht everyone else also did? Or is it more a matter that she blogged publicly about what maybe some other people were thinking but never let leave their hole for fear of waking the beast. If it is a legitimate slam, then I don’t see it.

  18. Jamie

    Brooke and jarred are my homies! They are some if the few legit people involved in our sports, and make putting up with the duchebags involved with our sports worth it.
    I haven’t had a chance to read all the drama in the comments yet, but I don’t need to. If brook or j says it’s so.. It’s so. Deal with it bitches!

  19. Hire Matt at Burton, here is your chance to get in. There just may be a position opening up at Burton with your name on it!! Must be qualified to spend a good portion of your day facebooking and anonymously commenting on shit that doesn’t even matter.

  20. Chris

    This here is a hilarious read about a company really struggling to come to terms with their faltering public image. Quick to point the finger at everyone else Burton dosn’t seem to grasp the problem is that of their own actions. Trying to convince everyone you put so much back into snowboarding while firing your roster of loved and established riders to save a few bucks by promoting the new lowly paid breed of Burton riders is just as idiotic as the moron from Burton leaving comments on this blog. Ask any ex-rider or ex-employee who has left Burton and they tell you just how fucked up and corporate the company has become. More power to you Brooke, wish there were more articles like this in snowboard media, but like you said when Burton advertises everywhere they effectively control what is written about them.

  21. carlito brigante

    so a water skater, a photographer, and a internet detective walk into a bar…

    It’s sad that the story was mildly entertaining but insignificant at best and now it’s a big deal. Sounds like snowboarding to me.

  22. Goat Woods

    As an ex-b person I can tell you first hand how seriously people take their jobs over there. I mean they have a PR staff bigger than most other companies entire marketing departments. It was in poor taste for brooke to post that “recession” article, but that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it thoroughly. Burton takes itself very seriously, and believe it or not people internally read everything good and bad, that is said about the company. It is pretty easy to see whay this article was not well recieved. On the other end though, the industry leader needs to have thicker skin, for them to even acknowledge this article makes them look equally as bad as brooke for writing it.

    Internally Burton is fucked; and the people in leadership positions are doing their best, whether they realize it or not, to run the company into the ground. It’s really sad actually.

    On the flip side though there is a whole crew of people working there for pennies who are doing so because they love the sport and believe in what the brand stands (or once stood) for. You can’t throw the bathtub out with the bathwater.

    Anyway, carry on beacuse this is really entertaining.

  23. wait, i missed the Ball Park Franks logo on this article….

  24. Since my site gets a lot of visitors, and a different audience than Brooke’s I felt the need to write about this debacle Burton’s marketing department has created for itself on my personal site here: http://www.jaredsouney.com/2009/10/burton-snowboards-control-denied/

    That will if nothing else add to the search engine presence of this and the clusterfuck the media has turned into.

  25. 24 hours later … still funny and weird.

  26. Jeremy W

    All I want to ad is that advertisers influencing content to the point of control is nothing new. Not by a long shot. Love it or hate it, or (like Moeller, owner of S&M bikes) make your own magazine.
    The adult world is not a fair place to have a controversial opinion, really. I also don’t see the problem with the owners of Burton having money, am I missing something?
    ~J

  27. Jeremy, you are missing the point in a sense. This all spawned from a publication Brooke started to avoid that bullshit.

    The point wasn’t the story that was written, which never would have gotten any attention, the point is a company trying to control something it has no control over, and then failing miserably at it.

    The Moeller thing doesn’t really apply here and is actually the complete opposite. He started a magazine because he couldn’t run the ads he wasn’t able to manipulate the media the way he wanted.

  28. hahahahaha the pissed off guy says ‘eff’. What a fucking pussy

  29. holy shit i didn’t even notice that! he called the shit poop. must be Burton’s policy to only use swear-letters when trolling on company time.

  30. This is the best thing that I have ever seen on the Internet.

  31. Not a Burton Fan...but....

    This article is done in bad taste. I know it was just an honest attempt at a making light of the situation, but it didn’t come accross that way. It reads like a personal attack on the Burton-Carpenter’s. If you’ve got something to say about the company, then say it, but don’t go to their house and slander them personally, especially when their throwing a party for you. That’s just piss poor gamesmanship.

    The article sounds petty and immature and I don’t blame anyone for being pissed off.

  32. I recently did a review for the game Evony about their community, not their ads, like so many others, they came at me with the threat of a lawsuit like you wouldn’t believe. I enjoy reading your blog, this is the first time posting. I, like you, tend to write the same way, gets me a bit of hot water, but if it needs to be said, say it. fuck the rest. As I always say, people have huge e-penis’s on the internet, kudos for you for having the balls to say what you mean.

  33. steve

    omg – what a shit storm. amazing!

  34. Note: It’s not slander if it’s true, or if it’s written.
    When it’s written it’s libel. But again, only if it’s not true and is shown to have malicious intent (amongst a few dozen other tests and precedents).

    And as for the insult… where is it? She never says “Jake Burton is a dickhole who throws shitty parties,” she just made snide remarks about the party itself. Kind of.

  35. So I have been sitting back and watching all this, and honestly, I wasn’t even going to comment again. But since everyone has made my blog about a real problem in the media (one everyone knows about but no one says anything) into a bash fest, I guess I’ll explain my original article. I agree, it wasn’t the more tasteful thing ever written, but it was in no way meant to harm, or even offend. It was just a funny, ridiculous concept I came up with based around what everyone I talked to mentioned! That said, I wouldn’t write an article like that for any one but YoBeat (not even this blog!) because that’s the kind of stuff we write on YoBeat. And guess what, that’s why people read it! Thanks to everyone who’s checked this and read it. It’s only snowboarding, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act ethically as media people.

  36. Sam Lewis started Postsurf.com to call out the surf industry bullshit, I say Yobeat has done that already for snowboarding. We are snowboarders, I thought that meant we had a sense of humor for fucksakes.

  37. Not a Burton Fan:
    Libel is applied to the written word, not slander. Slander is spoken.

    Libel is also applied to false statements given as fact. For instance if Brooke had said “Jake had dead babies hanging in his pool room” one could argue that is grounds for libel (assuming he did not in fact have dead babies hanging in the pool room but I’m not certain either way).

    This wouldn’t be an issue at all if the Burton employees who are all sensitive about a company that would turn on their back on them in an instant hadn’t gotten butt hurt over nothing.

    In fact, it’s now a huge internal issue for Burton. How do I know? Well, I can see the visits to my blog on the subject from Burton IP addresses around the world.

    The fact of the matter is, they created this matter but not being smart enough to have a media embargo on the party if there needed to be one. Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with writing about it.

    As I’ve said before, I don’t like snowboarding. But I am sensitive to large companies making demands to the media, specifically “take that story down.” So this matter isn’t going away, in fact it’s only going to get a lot bigger…

    Especially now that I now know the name of the Burton employee who left anonymous comments from Burton’s office.

    Game on motherfuckers. The second he claimed to call bullshit on my statements of fact above on Burton’s company time, without signing his name to it this became all about having fun with this.

    And yes, I am very aware that all this is GOOD for Burton. If only they were media savvy enough to understand the value of new media, and negative PR this would have all gone away.

    If Brooke had any journalistic integrity, as Todd Richards pointed out she would have left an upper decker at Jake’s house, photographed it, and blogged about it on YoBeat. That would have given those Cool-Aid drinking nitwits something to cry home about.

  38. DO IT

    Hey Souney,

    Please post the name of the person. Who cares, do it.

  39. Do it,
    I am emailing him right now with some interview questions so I don’t want him to get fired prior to that, as the only email address I have for him is his Burton one.

  40. DO IT

    If you don’t hear back from him, post up his name! Give him 12 hours to respond, otherwise blow up his spot.

  41. the upper-decker is actually taught in journalism schools now. it’s part of investigative reporting coursework.

  42. I like how the people who say Mr. Geery is flaming are mocking themselves by flaming in his blog.

    Also, if you want to prove a point and have people believe what you say, Souney, you do it on your own agenda or social media not in bashing said person on their own blog. Whether he is right or you are, it makes you look the like the ass. You come here and flame and mock and spam and you seem to me like the kid who is taking his ball and going home!

  43. IRGRL,
    You’re the one spamming, because clearly you haven’t read any of the above.

    I am doing it on my own agenda. I’m not bashing “Mr. Geery,” who is actually a female, I’m bashing the Burton employee who started the mess.

    Do so on my own agenda? I already did, and thanks to social media over a thousand people have already read said post!!!!

    http://www.jaredsouney.com/2009/10/burton-snowboards-control-denied/

    You should read what you’re responding to before you respond!

  44. dan

    While its been entertaining to read, I really think everyone needs to get over it and move on, and forget about it, like Brooke said, its just snowboarding!!

  45. homeslice

    When is souney going to share with us the name of this person and the questions he submitted to said person. Inquiring minds would like to know.

  46. Below is my email to said nitwit, with the questions below. I want to give him a bit of time to reply to the interview (which is obviously sarcastic, he had no guerilla marketing intentions).

    The point Dan makes above is exactly right. It’s just snowboarding. So if Burton had any sort of respect for snowboarding at this point, in my opinion they would a: not try to power trip the little guy snowboard media and b: get off their high horses and leave comments with their real names attached.

    ________________________

    It has come to my journalistic attention through some careful research that you may in fact be the anonymous commenter who’s trashed YoBeat and Brooke Geery’s blog from Burton’s sacred IP address. Clearly this is an orchestrated marketing scheme on Burton’s end, and it’s brilliant.

    If this information is incorrect, forgive me, but it appears to be valid that they came from you.

    I became interested in this subject mostly because of the companies attempt to have a story pulled from YoBeat, which is against everything I believe in from a business standpoint (for the record in now way defamed the company, and was actually good for them, in my professional opinion). Since it was obvious that was going to cause a ruckus, it must have been an intentional ploy for media attention and I love it.

    Anyway, since clearly Burton’s marketing dept. is aware that anonymous comments are not in fact anonymous (it’s 2009, everyone knows that), I wanted to do an interview with you as to the companies intentions with such comments. Since they were left from the company, we can only assume there is some sort of marketing genius going on here!!! Clearly this was guerilla marketing at work.

    Again, if it wasn’t you I apologize for taking up your time, please direct me to who it was, but we’re fairly certain. I just find this operation to be remarkably brilliant!

    The interview is below:

    So you guys knew that these anonymous comments were going to cause a shitstorm. Were you aware of the thousands of extra eyes it would draw to the Burton brand through social media pass-alongs like Twitter and Facebook? I mean, now everyone is saying “Burton.” Bad publicity is good publicity right?

    Has Burton been encouraging more of this guerilla marketing, since it’s been so successful?

    If for some reason it fails to re-invigorate the core audience of rebellious Burton haters, will you guys try again?

    What is the internal Burton code-phrase for this marketing scheme? For instance, is it referred to around the office as “Operation Clusterfuck” or something like that?

    What has been your favorite blogger reaction to the subject, and or comment / tweet?

    Has Burton’s new Social Media Marketing Director been instrumental in organizing this program (depending on the answer we may need to follow up on this with her), or was it Jake’s push?

  47. I gave him all day. But Tomas never emailed me back. I’m bummed. Allegedly he’s the commenter and won’t confirm it!!! I don’t get it.

    If you left those witty comments, calling someone fat, wouldn’t you want to take the credit? I just want to give credit where credit is due.

    I at least want his address so we can send him his YoBeat shirt he’s earned for his shit-talking.

    I’ll keep trying to get in touch with him I guess. I mean, we’re trying to give him an interview!

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