RAGBRAI Organizers Split from Register

[Rogue52]

RAGBRAI 2020 planning would already be pretty far along, but there is still much to do. I don't see the Register filling staff holes in short order and it will ultimately impact the event. The Register's initial statement is that RAGBRAI 2020 is a GO. I'm not sure what my plans will be.

@Cycsk Yes, there are numerous entities that have multi-year agreements with RAGBRAI - notably those with exclusive rights to use the RAGBRAI name and logo. For instance, I know that Big Grove Brewery signed a 5 year agreement to brew the official beer of RAGBRAI.

 

[everyyard]

In addition to invoking Carson King's name to promote their own spinoff event, they also invoked John Karras, citing a promise made years ago to maintain this great event. How noble!

Reached for comment today, Karras said he was not consulted about the competing ride and that he was "dismayed" and "stunned." He also said, "That's insane."

Looks like they really thought this through! Good to see people do things that are based on principled stands and definitely, clearly not blatant opportunism.

what makes this a temper tantrum and not a stand for conviction is that it will be held on the same week.

 

[Trice]

"Reached for comment today" => not shocked that link was to The Rag.

Not sure what you were expecting here. The New York Times and Washington Post probably aren't beating down John Karras' door for a quote.

 

[CyArob]

Oh Iowa. Need to get better controversies.

 

[dirtyninety]

The Des Moines Register has about as much to do with Des Moines and Iowa as USAToday has to do with the USA.....Glad people are waking up.

 

[Urbandale2013]

what makes this a temper tantrum and not a stand for conviction is that it will be held on the same week.

Honestly that just goes to show it’s a stand. I’m not sure why people seem to think this is some self untitled temper tantrum or anything of the sort. I’m also not sure what’s in it for these people. This new ride isn’t a for profit event. It is for charity. Putting it on the same weekend allows people to continue to participate in what RAGBRAI was while disassociating from the Register.

From the sounds of it RAGBRAI was going to be hurting from regular people choosing not to do it anyway. This allows RAGBRAI or some form of it to continue indefinitely vs dying out over the next few years.

 

[aeroclone]

I think you are overestimating on how many people actually care about this. Go to their Facbook page and look how many likes they still have. They will obviously lose some subscribers but it wont be the numbers everyone is hoping for.

Their Facebook page lost 25% of their followers in the day following the Carson King story, and that number hasn't bounced back at all. I can't think their print numbers or advertisers took a hit of that scale, but they took a good hit on this thing.

 

[CloneFan4]

Seriously. This should have barely been a story.

The register did a rather routine background search. Probably just ran a tool that pulled all his tweets, plenty of ways to do that. They included a line about what he'd said in a column that was overwhelmingly positive and meshed the negative tweets in language that indicated this isnt how he is today.

But people had to freak the **** out as if the editor of the register went out and murdered someone. Seriously, this isnt a story. Anyone still freaking out about it or demanding blood from the register for something that should be almost a complete non-issue is, quite frankly, an idiot.

It's now "routine" to dig up **** on a person that sparked a campaign to donate over $1 million dollars to sick children?

Get a grip.

 

[alarson]

It's now "routine" to dig up **** on a person that sparked a campaign to donate over $1 million dollars to sick children?

Get a grip.

Its routine to do a quick background check on just about anyone because you never know what'll show up. It isnt hard. You act like they hired a private detective to do digging instead of likely spending less than an hour running a quick check.

 

[dosry5]

Its routine to do a quick background check on just about anyone because you never know what'll show up. It isnt hard. You act like they hired a private detective to do digging instead of likely spending less than an hour running a quick check.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something.

 

[Trice]

Its routine to do a quick background check on just about anyone because you never know what'll show up. It isnt hard. You act like they hired a private detective to do digging instead of likely spending less than an hour running a quick check.

The outrage over a background check totally baffles me. As if people wouldn't want to know if he'd had, for example, a fraud conviction in his past. Agree or disagree whether old tweets were relevant to write about, but basic due diligence is journalism 101 for someone you're about to write a fawning profile over.

 

[alarson]

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something.

You say as if its a major crime to do a cursory search on someone's background. Its not like they knew what they'd find, but it seems more like malpractice to not get the full picture on someone theyre spending significant time on. It isnt the paper's job to paint incomplete pictures of people just because you like them.

Hell, we've seen instances where that was not done and some crazy **** comes out about someone. What if they'd done the routine lookup and found out he'd made racist tweets last year and not several years ago. That would certainly be newsworthy, but you don't find one without the other.

 

[alarson]

The outrage over a background check totally baffles me. As if people wouldn't want to know if he'd had, for example, a fraud conviction in his past. Agree or disagree whether old tweets were relevant to write about, but basic due diligence is journalism 101 for someone you're about to write a fawning profile over.

One example that comes to mind is that one dude from the presidential debates a few years ago. Everyone loved the dude and then they found his reddit comments and it was like 'that dude is weird as ****"

 

[Rods79]

Its routine to do a quick background check on just about anyone because you never know what'll show up. It isnt hard. You act like they hired a private detective to do digging instead of likely spending less than an hour running a quick check.

There was nothing wrong with running the background check. What was wrong was the inability of understanding how to handle that information and what to do with that information. That, and they should have run that quick background check on their own staff.

 

[Trice]

There was nothing wrong with running the background check. What was wrong was the inability of understanding how to handle that information and what to do with that information. That, and they should have run that quick background check on their own staff.

No argument here, though that's a Register HR failing and not a news failing.

But if we're all supposed to act in ways that keep us from being hypocrites, why hasn't anyone forgiven the reporter?

 

[CYdTracked]

Its routine to do a quick background check on just about anyone because you never know what'll show up. It isnt hard. You act like they hired a private detective to do digging instead of likely spending less than an hour running a quick check.

It's fine to do the background check, I dont disagree with that part. Their mistake was publishing the tweets they found. It had no relevance to the story and were from 8 years ago when he was a 16 year old kid. There was no purpose or benefit to publish what they did and then double down on the backlash it created was even dumber. Now they just shot themselves in the foot once again with this new RAGBRAI controversy too. At what point do you just swallow your pride and admit mistakes were made and apologize or just keep dumping gas on the fire? They've taken a bit hit financially and PR wise on this and will continue to do so if they keep taking the stance they are. Its pissed off a lot of people in their target audience they may never get back as customers now.

Carson had come out of this mess looking better than before while the DMR has done further damage to themselves by continuing down the path of poor choices.

 

[CYdTracked]

No argument here, though that's a Register HR failing and not a news failing.

But if we're all supposed to act in ways that keep us from being hypocrites, why hasn't anyone forgiven the reporter?

I dont have much of an issue with the reporter as I do the editors that chose to run the story then throw him under the bus as the scapegoat while they kept their jobs. The editors could have taken what he found and directed him not to publish it because it was not relevant and could cause controversy but they decided to run with it because we live in an age of click bait and juicy stories that drive ad revenue and they probably saw it as as a story that would drive up traffic and ad revenue for them. They failed to account how the public might react and the negative consequences that could happen and now they are paying the price for it.

 

[ForbinsAscynt]

No matter what you think about the register I think most will agree that splitting the greatest annual event in Iowa is a bad idea. Hoping there is some sort of compromise between the two parties.

 

[Rods79]

No argument here, though that's a Register HR failing and not a news failing.

But if we're all supposed to act in ways that keep us from being hypocrites, why hasn't anyone forgiven the reporter?

The only reason people haven’t forgiven the reporter is because he was still partially responsible for the mishandling of information, and his tweets were pretty disgusting on their own part...but he did get a raw deal for being fired without Carol Hunter being fired minutes before, or at the exact same time. Pretty disgusting for the one in charge to throw the lowly staff under the bus to save their own hide.

 

[Urbandale2013]

It's fine to do the background check, I dont disagree with that part. Their mistake was publishing the tweets they found. It had no relevance to the story and were from 8 years ago when he was a 16 year old kid. There was no purpose or benefit to publish what they did and then double down on the backlash it created was even dumber. Now they just shot themselves in the foot once again with this new RAGBRAI controversy too. At what point do you just swallow your pride and admit mistakes were made and apologize or just keep dumping gas on the fire? They've taken a bit hit financially and PR wise on this and will continue to do so if they keep taking the stance they are. Its pissed off a lot of people in their target audience they may never get back as customers now.

Carson had come out of this mess looking better than before while the DMR has done further damage to themselves by continuing down the path of poor choices.

Exactly it isn’t so much that they did a background check although the depth they went from what I can tell is far from industry standard. The issue is understanding what is newsworthy and relevant to the story. In no way was this newsworthy. Carson received no financial benefit and really was just a tool to do good. If there was fraud that may be one thing but he wasn’t handling the money at that point it was being handled by Venmo.

the Register has proven time and time again with this that they don’t understand the issue. That’s why they are continuing to get the backlash. If they can’t recognize that they screwed up then they can’t and won’t survive.