Monday, March 28, 2011

 

Raising Awareness


Since it hit the internet on Friday afternoon, I’ve seen a variety of reactions to Bill Strickland’s Bicycling piece about Lance Armstrong and dope. Many of them, I think it’s fair to say, have been negative. That was expected given the subject at hand, Strickland’s longtime support of Armstrong, and his connections to Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel via authorship of several books. And as expected, among dedicated cycling fans, the criticism has come from both sides of the polarizing Armstrong debate. It follows familiar patterns: For those who believe Armstrong doped, the acknowledgement will never be early enough and the condemnation will never be strong enough. For those who believe in Armstrong’s innocence, there will never be enough proof. C’est la guerre.

But regardless of where you stand, or if you stand at all, I think there are a few things worth noting about the piece that many die-hard cycling fans aren’t taking into account when skewering Strickland, the piece, or both. Many of these thoughts could be summed up as “people are looking too hard at the words, and not enough at the context.” But if you want the wordier version, read on…
It’s not about you
It’s highly unlikely anyone who reads this website (and its colleagues, associates, and superiors), niche cycling magazines, and bad translations of L’Equipe is going to be shocked by the piece's content regarding Armstrong. But the article doesn't appear in any of those places. It appears in Bicycling magazine and on that publication’s website. By virtue of its location, the article is not for you, but for a larger, broader, more mainstream audience. For people for whom Bicycling is a main source of professional cycling information (and they are out there, I assure you), this is, if not shocking, an extremely notable change in acknowledgement of “the Armstrong issue.” It is in a sense an epitaph for the “bigger engine, fast spin, and stage reconnaissance” school of explaining Armstrong’s dominance to the masses. And the farewell is writ large on the pages of its most loyal practitioner.
It’s not just about Strickland
The article is largely Strickland's reflection on his personal grapples with the “did he or didn’t he” question. But the reason the piece is important isn’t because Bill Strickland’s assessment has changed – it’s important because its publication reflects a much bigger change.

Again, the location of the article is important. It's printed in a magazine that has featured ample and presumably profitable content about Armstrong and from his associates (e.g., Chris Carmichael, Johan Bruyneel) over the years, and that draws ad revenue from heavily Armstrong-affiliated companies like CTS, Trek, and SRAM. Bicycling has helped build the Armstrong legend, and, in turn, has profited from it. And make no mistake, that legend still has value left in it. So even when you’re the editor-at-large, the choice to burn those sorts of bridges isn’t all your own. No, people farther up the chain have to be willing to strike their matches, too, and the people holding the dry tinder would know the stakes of this particular bonfire. Bicycling, after all, is not an independent magazine – it’s one title in the much larger fitness-oriented Rodale media empire. Think Men’s Health will get Armstrong to do a shoot for “Ten Great Tips on Staying Fit in Middle Age” now? Think Runners World will get an exclusive quote when triathlete Armstrong turns up at a charity 10k? Think Livestrong is going to return Prevention’s phone calls for its next testicular cancer story? Anyone who’s seen the Armstrong playbook in action knows none of those are likely.

Yes, any good media organization keeps a firewall between the editorial and advertising departments, and I don't claim to know how Bicycling is structured or who gets a say in what’s printed. But on some level, everyone knows which side their bread is buttered on. Bicycling’s – and by extension, Rodale’s – implicit decision to give up access to one of the biggest names in fitness (and potentially the ad dollars of his loyal corporate partners) – is extremely telling. Just as Bicycling contributed to the making of the Armstrong brand in mainstream America, Bicycling’s shift on Armstrong will contribute to its downfall in mainstream America. I suspect it was not a decision taken ignorantly or lightly.

You might know, and I might know, but Strickland has to KNOW
Many have criticized Strickland for only now accepting what cycling’s many Twitter users and bloggers have “known” for a long time. I understand where that feeling comes from, but I believe that what we’re seeing here is someone who, whether from personal belief or professional requirement or both, holds “knowing” to a higher standard, at least when it comes to speaking bluntly and publicly as he does in his piece. And he should, because the backlash he’ll experience from it will be of a higher standard, too.

Look, the Service Course could shout that Armstrong doped from every rooftop and social media outlet available, even though I don’t know a damn thing more about it than most of you do. On a good traffic day, or if the right person linked to it, I might get some angry emails and comments from Armstrong fans, or maybe a missive or pat on the back from someone inside the sport. And the next day, whether I was right or wrong about it, I’d go back to my real job, where my position, my company, my clients, and my coworkers would be entirely unaffected by my opinion about whether some retired lycra freak had a bit of a needle fetish.

Strickland, on the other hand, has skin in the game. He has a boss he has to answer to if he’s wrong on doping in cycling, and especially if he’s wrong about Armstrong and doping in cycling. He has a job in the cycling industry that still requires him to still be able to talk to people in that industry to earn a paycheck. He not only has his real name on his work, and an easily identified paying agent, but also likely has his work, home, and cell numbers in Rolodexes that you and I don’t on both sides of the Atlantic.

I’d venture to say that there’s a lot of internet bravado from the peanut gallery that would ultimately wither under the possibility of a call from Armstrong, or Bruyneel, or, more likely, from their attorneys or numerous other formal or informal cohorts, agents, and hangers-on. Or under the kill-the-messenger onslaught that invariably follows defiance of the inner circle. But the peanut gallery, even its upper echelons, the elite zonder contract of the social media world, never really faces that. Strickland will, and at close range, I'd wager. So if he thinks about it a good deal longer and requires a higher standard of evidence than the rest of us before he sets his opinions in print, I’m not going to begrudge him that. And ultimately, regardless of the substantial downsides, he chose to do it anyway. That takes conviction, and courage. Could he have done it earlier, or been a less fervent Armstrong supporter given his knowledge and position? Absolutely. But life isn’t always as simple as it looks.

[Note: I’m not saying, in the least, that fans shouldn’t weigh in on these issues just because they’re not or never have been professional cycling journalists. Longtime readers know that’s not my way of thinking.]

Late is still early
Finally, let’s circle back to that oft-heard criticism of Strickland as being late to the “Armstrong Doped” party. Now, I’m not sure, and I admit to not doing my good Google diligence on the matter. But I’m thinking that Strickland may in fact be the early arrival at this particular soiree. Yes, countless members of the citizen media have long since gone on record as believing in their heart of hearts that Armstrong doped. David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, both respected, decorated members of the mainstream press have as well. But among journalists who draw a living from cycling publications, you’d be hard pressed to find an earlier statement on par with Strickland’s. From his contemporaries, there have been indicators of a souring on Armstrong, of rising skepticism: hints dropped on Twitter, markedly less laudatory articles, less favorable recountings of the accusations, and more unequivocal assessments offered in private conversations. But the sort of definitive, “I’ve seen the inside, and I think he did it” that Strickland laid out there – from a senior editor, in print, in a cycling magazine? That is a brave new world.

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Comments:
Great summary of the issue as always. I agree that the most telling thing about the article is that it marks a massive shift in mainstream opinion. I don't think Bicycling (or Strickland for that matter) would risk irking the Armstrong circle if they were not sure that something did happen and an indictment may be down the road
 
Well put. Your point about him being early to another party, one that many of us wouldn't be invited to is very astute.
 
Life is damned complex. People think they know the truth, but the truth isn't just the facts about a crime or rules infraction. It's about a web of people of varying degrees of moral culpability involved in a situation that's gone wrong. While Strickland's conclusion that Lance doped is the focal point for a lot of praisers and haters, I find it much more interesting how he had to struggle to navigate the personal minefield in which his jock buddy maybe doped, and in which he himself may have been compromised along the way. Who knows though? He's the only guy who can give us perspective on what he saw, and given that he's revealing things that look like failings - statements against interest - I'm inclined to trust what he's saying.

Others can hate on him but it seems unfair to bash a guy who is giving us careful, thoughtful journalism about a really difficult subject. Oh, the rules on doping are clear, and should be strictly enforced, but how do you handle it when your friends dope; how do you handle it when you get to travel in a race caravan, see these guys all the time, maybe even do side charitable work with them, or collaborate in selling the sport?

I'm pretty certain I couldn't have handled Strickland's situation - the personal and professional entanglements - as well as he is handling it. I thought it was a very, very good article.
 
Makes me wonder if a grand jury or prosecutorial leak sealed his opinion. Rodale lawyers would not want to risk a libel suit and the hefty legal costs to fight.
 
Nice piece. Well done.
 
Interesting that you give detailed explanations about Rodale's imminent financial ruin yet never once entertain the idea that Mr Strickland, close confidante, might actually have Mr Armstrong's approval for his piece? Was there ever a more 'positive' piece on a doper written?
 
I like strickland.
the article, which I read after being directed there from your blog, isn't really that good. It's just not Bill's best stuff. Interesting, but really not earth shattering... There's nothing to it... Frankly, your piece is the stronger arguement... your piece is very well done...

respect
fm
 
I agree with Festinagirl. The prima facie case is not that Strickland has had a change of heart but rather that he is still working for Armstrong, Inc. The article has the form of a parent breaking the news to the kids about Santa Claus before they hear it from the older kids at school.

It's inevitable that the fanbase is going to hear lots of things that will upset them. Strickland is helping to manage the message.
 
You know guys, Lance has been in and out of rehab for heroin. That's how he met and hooked up with Cheryl Crow, in Austin, Tx. Let's make a character call on this!
 
Brilliant. Spot on. I admire the inherent quality of the above posting. Normally I would admire Bill's commentary. In my opinion he's too well caught in the eye of the storm to have much objectivity.

This Great American Dope Opera is to me nothing more than a teen-age hater-fest between high-school educated brats acting out a self perpetuating suspended adolescence. Over and over and over again.

Landis grew up in the equivalent of a *van down by the river*. It's appalling the amount of status being conferred on the whole debacle.

Lance is a suburban-single parented latch-key punk. Beyond bike racing and obeying the guidance of his posse... He's not that smart. I'm not bemoaning his aptitude, savvy or accomplishments... but the dude is lacking some maturity. The same can be said for Vaughter.

It just kills me. I'm astonished. I'm incredulous.

The Onion needs to re-pen it's missive on LA. Re-title it something to the effect that Grown Men Weep as The World's Greatest Douche-Bag Retires. It's not even worth fussing over let alone conveying any meaning too. I'm against the federal investigation because of that.

So anyway, you've done a damn fine job of posting something few would have the insight for. Chapeau Mate. Indeed. Respect. Thanks. I needed that.
 
great piece. most people either hate, hate, hate Armstrong or love, love, love him. I appreciated that your piece had neither. I really enjoy Strickland's writing and I found the most interesting part of Strickland's piece was how he came to terms with the fact that maybe Lance was a doper. Because I found myself having to make the same journey.
 
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