Lionel Birnie tells it like it is.
Comments
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I agree with what you say hotoph88.I stopped getting the comic over a year ago and haven't missed it one bit.The money I saved has gone to subscription's to better magazines.I gave all my old comic's to dentist's +doctor's surgery's,the rest I binned.I did keep the ones from the late 70's and the 80's though.I mentioned on the comic's forum about Nicole not being on the cover and got a large picture shown to say ner ner ner yes we put her on the cover.In a very childish way,they just couldn't get my point.
I can't understand how they can say boardman has been our best rider in the last century he was a time trialist/prologue specialist to me and a good one at that,ok he won the criterium international but in the whole where was he when ther real racing started at 170k plus.How on earth they rate him higher than Robert Millar is beyond belief.Maybe thats how they see cycling mainly for track and testing.Im not knocking the riders who do this but to me the road is where its at.
I want to hear about the likes of Alessandro Ballan,and the young riders starting to shine.Not to mention interviews with Mark Cavendish,Nicole Cooke e.t.c..thats why I stopped getting the comic.0 -
hotoph88 wrote:leguape - that is the identical false argument that has got the banking system to exactly where it is now "...we have not got a clue what it is we are trading in but everyone else is doing it. It is so very popular... so we better join in, quick, let's place our bids and buy those bonds". You logic is diconnected. Do people who google for "Victoria Pendleton naked" pay yearly subscritions to Cycling Weekly after they have had a vicarious thrill from seeing her on their computer screen ? Even if those sort of people buy a single copy in the deluded hope it is stuffed full of naked female cyclists, they will be so disappointed that it will be the only copy they purchase.
My point is that Victoria Pendleton naked is not why I buy CW. And even if it were the most googled search on Earth, the editorial staff did not need to add to it by giving this "fact" a whole page in the magazine. It is not a story I want to know. If I wanted a "top shelf" story, I would go there, but I don't. I like cycling, and cycle sport and I want winners that win fair. I don't want soft porn creeping into the single weekly magazine I can buy and I don't want the editorial team to just keep giving me the same story each week - Lance speaks. Perhaps the gulf between what I want and what is popular, is why I am sorry to say I have no idea who Annie Liebowitz is and no idea what her picture of Lance is. And no, please, I do not need a link to find it. I know I could if I wanted to, but I just don't care. I like cycling.
I can understand CW being very reticent to publish anything negative on Lance. I don't think there is a sporstman on the planet, or history, who has exerted such pressure on the press around the World and the UK libel laws so empower individuals in his position, it is incredible. (What were our politicians doing?)
So you are saying that CW shouldn't reflect in their publication what their online audience were actually clicking on. You are saying that the ad revenue of people clicking on the story is something they should ignore and actively discourage. They may not buy the print copy but they sure as hell pay in clicks and revenue per user (direct, calculable revenue, not rate card revenue based on ABCs). Print revenue is falling, online is growing, it's simple.
You don't know who Annie Liebowitz is and can't be bothered to search? Fine, you've almost certainly seen her work, she's possibly the most famous photographer of her generation. Her portrait of Lance Armstrong is probably the most definitive portrait of him there is and one of the most homaged shots in cycling portraits. It's practically a typology. That's what the Pendleton photos were about. And they were for the cover interview in Observer Sport Monthly, hardly "soft porn". If you like cycling, as you claim, then you should see the image because it is all about cycling (the Armstrong one).
As for litigious, Armstrong's not even in the big league. I could probably name a good long list of sporting stars who thrown more legal paper around than him, starting with David Beckham and half the NBA.0 -
hotoph88 wrote:....Tom Simpson... not No 1 ?
Seems hypocritical to revile an American you suspect of doping while celebrating an Englishman whom you know doped.0 -
Leguape – Looking at the number of hits to their pictures and forum, at best, away from the Olympics about 500 individuals per week make the CW website and they are more important than the 27,000 purchases or the 54,000 prospective purchases ?. (double or triple that 500 – more go to the news than the galleries of forum where there are counters) Why must the printed magazine have a story in it that refers to a minority online story that is irrelevant to the reason why purchasers buy the printed version? Even if it were 25 gazilion hits per day search for “Pendleton Nude” and then look at her picture, they will not buy a single magazine. They might click, they might get the thrill - 30 seconds later they are seeing who else naked ? I don’t care. I don’t care how “famous” Liebowtiz is. And I don’t care even if it is the prototype for the “best picture ever” of a Hollywood starlet naked. If I wanted naked starlet bodies, I would look on the top shelf. I don’t and I specifically buy CW because it is about cycling and not soft porn. I don’t want to see cyclists naked. I want to see them racing up cols and I buy the magazine to see and read about that. I like cycling. If someone thinks just how many people in the World want to see Pendleton naked, is a great online story - keep it online.
I will take a hit, full on, about the Simpson comment. It was hypocritical of me and I am annoyed with myself for including him. It certainly devalued my argument. It was more a response to what else I saw which was so irritating. Page after page of “Virenque the hero” Perhaps, I rather gave CW (and myself?) the benefit of the doubt that they, and I, were all “stupid” at the time and all thought the best of these cheats. Simpson was a hero of the time, like Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. It is definite he took drugs and cheated. He robbed others of victories they should have had. How far down the order do you have to go to get the first clean winner ? Perhaps I am confusing things but, with Anquetil and Simpson at least you had the reply “if you think I win that on sugar alone, you must be mad” or “if 10 will kill me, then I will take 9”. Compare that with the absolute hypocrisy of the recent batch. Perhaps I was a fool in thinking the drugs tests would actually catch somebody. As 100 tests on Marian Jones proved, the tests were worse than useless.
A personal view, I don’t think anybody in the top 100 in the time of Anquetil or Simpson was clean.
We cannot undo history. I still get a nauseous feeling every time I rip the plastic bag off my CW – Lance Speaks – gosh just what has he said this week, I can’t wait until I read it – wow – “if you think I could win 7 Tours on sugar alone, just ask my mate Floyd or Johan or Jan or ….” Now that would be worth the cover.
Campag Chris – I read the thread about the cover on the CW site. Others had stated that Cooke’s picture that week was a tiny little token effort at the bottom of the page. Then to counter your criticism Lionel then pasted in the thread, the cover they had when she won the Olympics. And said – see she does feature on the cover. Well, that first Olympic week she did get the cover because she had been in all the newspapers and they couldn’t really not put her on the cover. But come the World Championships, the rest of the press were not looking, so we had in pride of place - a chainset, a shoe, “lose weight: don’t go hungry” and the obligatory “ Lance Races again”(some weeks after the announcement of his return). Someone else in the thread then asked Lionel to post up the cover of the last time a GB rider won a senior RR champs – Mandy Jones in 82. He never did. I was cursing that I no longer had that magazine, otherwise I would have pasted it there. I am sure Mandy was the full cover. I wanted the only weekly magazine I can buy to feature history being made – the only rider to win World and Olympic titles on the road and not show me 9 pages of product reviews and displace a national treasure from the front page with pictures of a shoe. Even recently they were loads better. In 2000 when Cooke won the Junior road Worlds they gave the whole cover to it. Excellent, but now they have lost their way.0 -
hotoph88: Mandy was indeed on the cover on sept.18th 1982 in her rainbow jersey.Sarroni is on the back cover.I bet Ballan hasn't been on the cover of the comic.If Im wrong please don't paste it up here
I did mention this to them on their forum.Wouldn't you think they would have milked having a world and olympic champion in the way they are pushing armstrong.I doubt we will have a british double winner again in our lifetime,hope Im wrong though.As I said I gave/threw away all my comic's from 90's onwards and kept the older ones as there still good reading.Its a shame the comic has gone the route it has.We had some good magazines in them days International cycle sport,Cyclist monthly,pro news and winning.
At least procycling is still worth a read and to me the best monthly we have.If you like a good read have you tried rouleur,or ride cycling review an aussie mag both excellent but quarterley.
I know the internet has changed the way some mags work but to me you cant beat reading a good mag time your relaxing in the bath :roll:0 -
Birillo wrote:We all know that Aurelio has an agenda, but that's not the point. If Lionel Birnie really has "come out" with questions like that, then there is some hope for journalism from the British cycling press.
Blind Freddy knows of Aurelio's agenda. I agree with Birillo; I think it is just refreshing to see a jouro come out and say this.
I wasn't at LA's press conference on Wednesday but I caught up with two journo's on Thursday who were. Some of the questions posed to LA were embarrassing. The media spent more time wanting to here how wonderful Adelaide is, if LA would return next year and so on....
Here's a sample of the transcript:
http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/2009/?q=node/253
Good to see the big questions were asked. BY week's end I think the SA premier Mike Rann had fallen in love with LA.
So I don't care who the journalists are - if LA wants to be transparent, then bring on the tough questions.0
