Cycling Weekly: Armstrong

Haven't read it yet, but is the comment not a Leader style article? By its nature, something that is scheduled to be opinion? In fairness, by the time the Comment is out, we'll all have read about three different though roughly similar versions of the story anyway, rather than return to work.

I would take the attitude that journalists have three duties:
Firstly, that the news is initially reported as bare facts (information);
Secondly that a degree of investigative work is attempted on providing a background and development of the story, though the means of interviews and research and presented as feature or associated article (knowledge);
Thirdly, then an opinion that is cogent with the view of the paper or magazine is then collated from all the above information and knowledge (wisdom, at least in theory).

Unfortunately, these days, the only place you can rely on for pure information is the red-tops owing to the brevity of their articles, as the boradsheets tend to pad their articles out with opinion masquerading as information. But then, in most cases with the broadsheets, you already share that opinion, or have had yours influenced by it - comparatively few people buy papers with differing agendas.

We within the world of cycling in Britain have many divergent attitudes, but only one weekly organ of note, which cannot cater opinion-wise to the masses. However, it does make one very wise decision. It tends to agree with me

As regards the article, perhaps it was a little bit overly zealous on the case, but I do fear that the UCI is cashing Armstrong's verbal cheques a lot more than is wise. He is a huge draw for people who were otherwise not interested in cycling previously, and is likely to draw in many lapsed, bug spending types. Add to that the fact that he is doing it to "raise awareness of cancer", and UCI cannot really turn him away without being seen as a spoilsport, or hating cancer suffers (because not enough people are aware of cancer). It does seem to me that if Armstrong was aware of the rule, there should have been a discussion with UCI about altering / navigating the rule (as also should have been the case with Cipo) beforehand, rather than a Yes Minister style announcement ("It's in the Programme").

And if Armstrong is REALLY that anxious to make an appearance in Australia to "Raise awareness" rather than win things and tell everyone how he is the greatest and put in an early stake for the team leader role at a race for which Contador will probably be on a beach, why not appear at the Herald Sun Tour this time next year as a wrap up to the season? It sounds like a good event that could be assisted by the hoopla that goes with an Armstrong appearance, and would benefit from having the Livestrong Campaign at it, rather than reduced by it.

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