EN wasn’t barred from attending PF because they said they would not use the name, they were barred because they threatened the owner of the property with going to the media. If EN were so worried about about not using the name, they would have attended, not used the name, and then could have written an editorial stating that they were uncomfortable using the name, so they opted for the style used by the FEI, which calls the event Unionville. That would have opened a dialogue and would have been the appropriate method for a media publication. Instead they opted to go to war with Plantation Field Equestrian Events and the landowner. Mr. Walker has deep pockets, he could have fought it out, but eventing IS NOT HIS THING. He doesn’t care about the sport. He basically let PFEE use the property as a favor to a long term neighbor. He doesn’t need the grief that has been dumped on him for the last few months, so he withdraws his support. He could have told PFEE that this weekend event was off, which would have been the only thing that would have been worse.
If EN did, in fact, give the landowners and organizers an ultimatum and threaten to bring negative coverage in the mainstream media if the event name wasn’t officially changed, that is going way too far and the landowner’s reaction is more understandable.
I think it’s fine for them to let the organizers know they have concerns about the name, and for them to decide to refer to the event on their website by its location instead, and publish an editorial talking about said concerns. Making threats to try to force a change, on the other hand, is not taking the high road.
If we’re talking about words and changing every word that has a potentially offensive connotation, how about ‘Master’? Google the definition of the word and you will see that the very first definition is as follows below. Surely that is just as offensive as ‘plantation’.
noun [LIST=1]
Leslie Wylie has committed the number one cardinal sin of journalist: She became the story.
EN has committed the number one cardinal sin of journalism: They lost even the pretense of non bias reporting and coverage and became activists.
You don’t get to be both activist and journalist—at least not ethically. Activists don’t get free admission, access to press areas with the perks that go with it, special access to restricted areas and to participants. An event (of any type) grants journalists access and in exchange should have a reasonable expectation of fair and balanced coverage. Nothing close to that exchange happened here.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with their motivation. The fact here is they left honest, ethical journalism way behind in an effort to use their platform to bludgeon people who wouldn’t succumb to their demands. That’s flat out wrong. This isn’t “growth,” its autophagy.
I predict that EveningNation has jumped the shark. One can hope at least.
Er - not necessarily. They were bribed with EA-18G Growler jets and F-35 fighter planes. That should keep life interesting in the Middle East.
It’s a typical Netanyahu move; you arm one sect of muslims, who can then go drop stuff on another sect. Orange man fell for it :lol:
As soon as I saw EN threatening to go to non-equestrian media, I lost all respect for them. I’m glad the PF owner pulled the lease and said come get your jumps. Who the fuck does EN think they are?
Let me preface this by saying I understand the negative connotations behind the word plantation and totally understand why it may be appropriate to change the name.
However.
I am truly appalled by EN’s behavior in this. I honestly do not understand how a media company does not have a better grasp on PR. I am genuinely confused by their stance here. EN issues statement that they approached USEF/USEA saying they are uncomfortable printing the name of event. So let’s imagine PFEE and landowner agreed to go by Unionville in media. What exactly has EN done to create social change? Nothing. The event has the same name which is apparently fine as long as EN doesn’t have to print it. Furthermore from my understanding, the venue hosts unrecognized events there presumably under the same or similar name and the board uses the offensive language in their name. So it’s fine for unrecognized events and the board to use the offensive words as long as EN isn’t covering those events? It’s wildly hypocritical and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
To now find out that EN threatened to go to media basically makes their statement issued earlier this week a farce. They were not happy with just reporting the event under a different name.
THIS!!!
f ya i
I lost all respect for EN when they threatened to take this matter to the general media. They knew it was a possibility that with cancel culture being what it is that the organizer and land owner would get raked over the coals. I am amazed that people are shocked that the owner is
EN just posted a new article about this: https://eventingnation.com/why-change-is-hard/.
I personally want to highlight two paragraphs that seems particularly relevant to many of the comments on here, although the whole article is worth a read as folks continue this discussion:
The only three actions taken by the editorial team at EN were 1) privately raise the name issue through the proper channels, 2) make a commitment to use an alternative name in our coverage on EN, and 3) publish an editorial explaining our perspective after the decision had been made to cancel the event moving forward. I cannot be clear enough that we never made any threats to any person or organization.
This background is important not to defend ourselves but to provide context for the choices in front of all of us. The positive changes that I genuinely believe almost all of us seek are only possible if we first figure out how to address conflict while staying united as a community. A great number of us must radically put aside our frustrations and anger and come together to have tough conversations rather than rapidly escalating into anger and attacks. The great paradox is that conversation is not enough. We must care for our principles enough that they make a difference and simultaneously care for each other enough that unity thrives amidst change.
You are a landowner. You are leading a quite, peaceful, uneventful life in the country. You have +300 acres that you are paying many multiple $1,000 dollars and more of real estate taxes (that support local schools).
Multiple times a year you allow hundreds of people to traipse thru your property. You allow some crazed equestrians to gallop at speed towards immovable objects on your land. You get to pay for liability insurance and you work to maintain this property. And you get no monetary benefit out of any of this.
Then… one day… someone(s) you don’t know comes out of the blue with demands that you change a name associated with a parcel of land that has been in your family for close to a century. You are then dragged into the public limelight… chastened and humiliated in social media.
'Splain to me what the problem is when this landowner closes off his land?
Repeat after me…My Barn…My Rules.
Learn to love your landowners.
I’m more interested in how John’s new article on EN directly contradicts his interview with the Chronicle.
With John himself spreading misinformation, who knows what actually happened.
The only thing clear to me is that EN bit the hand that feeds it.
The email shown here is a response to an email from Rob Burk/USEA, as you can see from the bottom of the picture of the email. We can’t see what THAT email said, but the landowner’s response to it came only 47 minutes later. It was probably something he should have saved as a draft and sent the next day after calming down and considering it further. Maybe the result would have been the same, but who knows?
EN fully expected to bully PFEE into doing what they wanted. How else can you interpret a threat to go to mainstream media?
The problem is it totally backfired.
If I owned 300 acres in Chester County, had hosted high risk events there for decades and was treated this way, I would do exactly what the land owner did.
There will never be another venue like that in that area. Although I am not an eventer, I grew up in area, know and understand the history of it, and know and understand the value of it today.
Someone looked the gift horse in the mouth and totally had no appreciation for it!
The paragraph I found revelatory in EN’s new article was point 4 below, which illustrates clearly EN’s inexperience when it comes to reporting controversy - irrespective of who starts the controversy. The very first person EN should have gone to is PF…
- Try to deal with issues privately and directly rather than publicly. One of the big questions in my mind is whether we would have handled this better by going directly to the event. It’s hard to say, but I think it’s a good general principle to avoid having someone else tell your story.
Yup. You don’t like it? Don’t support it. But threatening the owner? Completely beyond unacceptable.
So I’m gleaning from this and that leaking out in this thread that EN was not first into the pool. That the FEI dropped the name Plantation before EN did. That EN may even have been following the FEI to some extent? Not sure about that, though.
I wish I had time to send out emails to the FEI, USEA, EN & others, wait on replies, etc., and chase this. Unfortunately life doesn’t allow plunging into a full-scale investigation of an eventing internet firestorm.
[B]Why exactly, per the FEI in their own words (not random internet speculation), did the FEI elect to change their references to “Unionville” and drop “Plantation”?
For the good of the sport the FEI should provide a statement of explanation and timing, because they are a part of what happened, too.[/B]
Did the FEI ask/tell the organizer landowner about the change to the “Unionville” reference? How did the organizer respond? Speculation: Almost certainly the FEI contacted the organizer ahead of making the change. I can’t imagine not telling whoever is the face of the event to the FEI.
Did the FEI ask/tell the landowner and board president of PREE about the change to the “Unionville” reference? If so, what was the response? Speculation: Again, almost certainly they did. Unless they left it up to the organizer to handle that communication. If it was left to the organizer, we have seen the organizer’s attitude toward the question and can only image how it was presented to Mr. Walker. If that’s how it went.
When did the FEI make this change to the “Unionville” reference?
Then, the USEA. The USEA was following the FEI, right? Speculation: The USEA was not following the lead of EN, but of the FEI - but we may never know enough about those conversations and timeframe to know.
Maybe the order of go was: FEI, USEA, EN. Will say that this is a bit cloudy, as I’m not doing a forensic investigation into the all of the posts and information that might possibly give relevant, factual clues.
It’s beginning to seem that Cuyler Walker’s outraged email and cancellation, and his reference to “media” but not to EN specifically, had more behind it than a phone call from EN to the organizer.
This.
I am waiting for some people in the social justice movement to understand how we do this matters, that tactics and methods are really important when it comes to bringing people around to our point of view. ( I am making this a general observation not commenting on anyone in particular here). That doing this badly ( and I think that EN did this badly ) is not the way to get people to put themselves in the uncomfortable situations that have to happen for real, long lasting change. That when we do this badly we have to face the consequences.
I lost all respect for EN when I found out they where going to take to the main stream media, knowing what the consequences to the organizers and land owner could be.
I think this is a sad because I was so excited with some of the stuff they were doing ( like the minority scholarship and giving poc a platform to talk about their experiences) and now that gets disregarded because of a situation that they could have handle in a much better way .
I’d still like to hear what USEA’s role in this utter debacle was. They used the same “unreasonable, over-reactionary difficult to deal with landowner” excuse when Richland shut down a couple of years ago. That was one of the best big farm shows I’ve ever been to. Fabulous hospitality, great courses, 3 star level and it will never be replaced. It’s getting a bit tiresome and suspicious. There’s a third show that has recently suffered the same fate that I can’t recall right at the moment.
One of the best posts I’ve seen.
So I’m gleaning from this and that leaking out in this thread that EN was not first into the pool. That the FEI dropped the name Plantation before EN did. That EN may even have been following the FEI to some extent? Not sure about that, though.
I wish I had time to send out emails to the FEI, USEA, EN & others, wait on replies, etc., and chase this. Unfortunately life doesn’t allow plunging into a full-scale investigation of an eventing internet firestorm.
[B]Why exactly, per the FEI in their own words (not random internet speculation), did the FEI elect to change their references to “Unionville” and drop “Plantation”?
For the good of the sport the FEI should provide a statement of explanation, and timing, of their decision to use “Unionville” rather than “Plantation”, because they are a part of what happened, too.[/B]
Did the FEI ask/tell the organizer landowner about the change to the “Unionville” reference? How did the organizer respond? Speculation: Almost certainly the FEI contacted the organizer ahead of making the change. I can’t imagine not telling whoever is the face of the event to the FEI.
Did the FEI ask/tell the landowner and board president of PREE about the change to the “Unionville” reference? If so, what was the response? Speculation: Again, almost certainly they did. Unless they left it up to the organizer to handle that communication. If it was left to the organizer, we have seen the organizer’s attitude toward the question and can only image how it was presented to Mr. Walker. If that’s how it went.
When did the FEI make this change to the “Unionville” reference?
Then, the USEA. The USEA was following the FEI, right? Speculation: The USEA was not following the lead of EN, but of the FEI - but we may never know enough about those conversations and timeframe to know.
Maybe the order of go was: FEI, USEA, EN. Will say that this is a bit cloudy, as I’m not doing a forensic investigation into the all of the posts and information that might possibly give relevant, factual clues.
It’s beginning to seem that Cuyler Walker’s outraged email and cancellation, and his reference to “media” but not to EN specifically, had more behind it than a phone call from EN.
