Charl dv said...

it is pretty funny how that absolute rookie fest of a mag is making such harsh comments when i saw a total of maybe 5 legit photos in it.

DaCurls said...

aaron who?

greenleader said...

journalists are kiters?

journalists don't do sports at an elite level......

they just report what they see and ask.

i just read that mag for the first time.

pretty normal journalism.

greenleader said...

in my 30+ years in windsports rowdy, i've never known a mag to be run for any length of time by a "competent" participant.

go figure!

greenleader said...

thats how it works.

you should book some more interviews.

I'm a journalist, and when a story presents itself I will write about it. Andy Yates is a “professional” kitesurfer, his job is to ride kites, win comps and speak to journalists. If we had merely requested and interview and he had said no, then I wouldn't have a problem with that. It is every ones right not to talk to the kite media, although no doubt his sponsors would have wondered why he was behaving that way.

The fact was that our readers had nominated him to be shortlisted for the readers awards. Every other rider who was nominated graciously appreciated the nomination, and was genuinely happy about it. It's a big accolade and something that only 5 men and 5 women from the kite world each year get the chance to be involved in. Andy Yates behaved in a totally unacceptable manner, I gave him ample opportunity to rethink his actions. But he insisted he didn't want to be compared to Aaron Hadlow. Something at that stage we hadn't actually done.

So we felt there was a story there, why would the current world champ be so unsettled by a rider who hasn't won the title since 2008. Andy also asked not to be compared to Aaron insinuating he was better than him. So for once instead of running a 10 page article interview with Andy about how well he had done and how great he was we decided to look into the other angle and see why a figure like Aaron still has the power to upset some of the best riders in the world.

Yes we poke a bit of fun in the article, but we also come back to Andy's amazing achievement, highlighting exactly how hard it is to win the world tour with so many things that can go against you. We also balance it by having a pop at Aaron too this year.

If you're a professional kitesurfer your life is pretty simple, keep the sponsors, media and fans happy. Andy let his sponsors down, the media and his fans. We called him on it nothing more nothing less.

You can say we are unprofessional, but we started out as professionally as we always do, looking to promote a rider who had been given a huge lump of respect from the readers. We also feel we balance the article as much as possible and kept it to a sensible level.

It was always going to cause a bit of controversy and split people into two camps, but we can't please everyone all the time. We wouldn't have felt comfortable writing an article about Andy's achievements, which was on the editorial plan, after the way he acted.

sir ROWDY said...

I guess this is what happens when you get people running a mag that can hardly even kite. All in it for the money. Same dude tried to start a snow mag but got denied... one word rookie.
I thought this mag sucked originally just for the sh!ty pictures, now I'm glad this happened because more people think this mag sucks for other reasons to haha.