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The emailer – evolution_tw@hotmail.com – has a rather odd pseudonym, One toke over the line Sweet Jesus!
Here’s what he CCed to a raft of trade and consumer bicycle magazine journalists in the US:
"My reason to write you today is the beguiling and somewhat plausable letter that your publication inserted on your website on Dec.9,2002. The data that you reported regarding Gary Silva was partially true which in turn would lead one to beleive that complete article is factual and accurate. Your spurious and counterfactual article was evidently completely unresearched. Phatcycles is under new ownership and management and clearly owns the "IP" that your inflammatory and sensationalistic article seems to claim are Gary Silva’s. (Phatcycles designer & disgruntled ex-employee) It is evident that the writer of this wrong,unsound and untrue article had an agenda that overcame the truth that wasobviously not correct and objective reporting."
The writer – who later claimed to be writing from Hong Kong but, from his CC mailing list, is more likely to be plugged into the US scene – goes on to complain about "unsound,nugatory,empty and irresponsable journalistic approach".
Advertisers and readers beware: "The outstanding companies that elect to advertise in your periodical [and the] well meaning people in the bicycle community should be aware of your erroneous, poor and unprofessional."
There’s a word missing there but it should have probably ended with "journalism" because in the next paragraph, the emailer accuses BikeBiz.co.uk of lying about an online journalism award:
"I see that you lay claim to being choosen as a receiptient of the European Online Journalism Awards that upon close inspection was NOT awarded to you in 2002. I am not sure what your intention is to lay claim to be this awards recipient. I am sure that if this esteemed awards judges (or jurors) could truely see the ridiculous and empty-devoid of truth style "tabloid-style" written trash that you are trying to pass as "reporting" that their would be a retraction of whatever award that you claim to have received."
It’s an odd fact of life that people who write in to complain about journalists not checking facts, invariably do no such checking of their own. The European Online Journalism Award (joint second with BBC.co.uk) was awarded in 2000, not 2002, hence no reference to BikeBiz on the EOJA website for the 2002 awards.
Regarding Phat, Seth Grossman, a co-founder of the company but now no longer involved, declined to add his side of the story to the article in question, but may do so later, he has told BikeBiz.
