"The kind of money I saw will haunt me forever"

[bee20]

Road and Track accidentally(?) sent a bicycling journalist to an F1 journalist weekend, and then accidentally(?) published her critique.  Her article was removed from their site (as was her author bio) but is still available on MSN:

www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/behind-f1-s-velvet-curtain/ar-BB1jaZRu

[mrsukyankee]

That was interesting.

[neverfstop]

It's not as damning as I thought it would be....

Bernie wasn't wrong...

[sent]

I thought this was going to be about the over-the-top wedding of the billionaire's son in India. The one where they paid Rihanna $6 million to come and perform.

[wawa]

I'm only part of the way through, and honestly this piece is weird, but I'm enjoying it.

this line is hilarious: "That designation has been transferred to Asheville, the North Carolina mountain town that's now a mecca for people who did the softer drugs in college and like beer that tastes like pine needles."

Important point - I thought the tone sounded familiar - this the same Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell. Whom I did not realize also covered cycling. Girl gets around.

[BlondeSpiders]

So glad I bought these earrings this weekend. I think I'll get a lot of use out of them this year. (Sorry so large.)
McNoodle Crafts on Etsy

[basilosaurus]

Mar 4, 2024 12:07:19 GMT -5 sent said:

I thought this was going to be about the over-the-top wedding of the billionaire's son in India. The one where they paid Rihanna $6 million to come and perform.

I'm currently staying in a neighborhood that's primarily south Indian. Everyone has been talking about it. So, yes, I thought the same.

[sent]

Mar 5, 2024 0:49:01 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Mar 4, 2024 12:07:19 GMT -5 sent said:

I thought this was going to be about the over-the-top wedding of the billionaire's son in India. The one where they paid Rihanna $6 million to come and perform.

I'm currently staying in a neighborhood that's primarily south Indian. Everyone has been talking about it. So, yes, I thought the same.

In what world is a steel tycoon from India friends with the founders of Facebook and Microsoft who are from the US?

In the billionaire’s club of course.

For some reason the linked article won’t load properly for me so I can’t read most of it. I’m curious at what she saw.

[ssmjlm]

Mar 5, 2024 9:47:02 GMT -5 sent said:

For some reason the linked article won’t load properly for me so I can’t read most of it. I’m curious at what she saw.

Honestly, nothing ground breaking. Rich people doing rich people things. Formula 1 has always been a rich people event.

[lessel]

Mar 5, 2024 11:17:37 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Mar 5, 2024 9:47:02 GMT -5 sent said:

For some reason the linked article won’t load properly for me so I can’t read most of it. I’m curious at what she saw.

Honestly, nothing ground breaking. Rich people doing rich people things. Formula 1 has always been a rich people event.

This. If you watch 10 minutes of any episode of the Netflix show Drive to Survive, you essentially see what she writes about. Maybe a different angle she had is that journalists are wined and dined in a way that is different and ethically troubling to journalists working other beats (or even sports reporters covering other sports). I feel like the bigger story is the way the outlet pulled down the story. It wasn't that bad and pulling it down called more attention to it.

[shauni27]

Mar 4, 2024 15:08:00 GMT -5 wawa said:

I'm only part of the way through, and honestly this piece is weird, but I'm enjoying it.

this line is hilarious: "That designation has been transferred to Asheville, the North Carolina mountain town that's now a mecca for people who did the softer drugs in college and like beer that tastes like pine needles."

Important point - I thought the tone sounded familiar - this the same Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell. Whom I did not realize also covered cycling. Girl gets around.

I liked her little sarcastic lines like that, but overall she came off a bit annoying and maybe elitist in her background of working as a journalist covering cycling?

[Jalapeñomel]

Damn, I wanted to share this, but it's not available any more. What a fascinating read.

[wawa]

Mar 5, 2024 12:32:51 GMT -5 shauni27 said:

Mar 4, 2024 15:08:00 GMT -5 wawa said:

I'm only part of the way through, and honestly this piece is weird, but I'm enjoying it.

this line is hilarious: "That designation has been transferred to Asheville, the North Carolina mountain town that's now a mecca for people who did the softer drugs in college and like beer that tastes like pine needles."

Important point - I thought the tone sounded familiar - this the same Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell. Whom I did not realize also covered cycling. Girl gets around.

I liked her little sarcastic lines like that, but overall she came off a bit annoying and maybe elitist in her background of working as a journalist covering cycling?

Oh she came off as totally annoying. But also funny.  And it's an interesting take.  I think I'd enjoy talking to her at a party, but if a friend dated her I'd be like, "oh god, her." by the 4th time she was around.

She's a journalist who covers cycling and is an architectural critic.  Like...that's some crazy specific snobby ass stuff.  Her view of the world is through a lens of pretty profound academic privilidge. She describes herself as being an ivory tower person in this piece even.  I'm picturing a literal ivory tower person angrily scowling at the giant looming castle full of our actual rulers while the peasants just stand down on the ground confused. Also not sure who the audience for this was in her head.  Who are you talking to?  Just....your people?  Fellow weird snobs? Like, I am your people to an extent.  But this was still dense AF.  The bits where she started talking about the actual cars and the drivers and the racing were nearly incomprehensible academic lit thesis stuff. 

Now that I've finished it I thought that she lost the thread in her conclusion.  This was a sad wheeze of a conclusion that I thought could have been more of a bang: 

I learned that I'm the kind of person who would rather be right than happy, would rather stand in my ivory tower than frolic in the fields below. I experienced firsthand the intended effect of allowing riffraff like me, those who distinguish themselves by way of words alone, to mingle with the giants of capitalism and their cultural attachés. It is to give this anointed everyman a taste of the good life, to make them feel like a prince for a day, and that if they do this with enough scribblers they will write nice words and somehow ameliorate the divide between the classes. My hosts were nice people with faces. They showed us extraordinary hospitality. If one takes many trips like this, I can see how it warps the mind, the perception of the world and our place in it. Power is enticing. Like Lewis Hamilton? You can eat steaks that cost the same as your electricity bill and meet him again. You, too, can bask in the balding aura of Prince Harry and the fake glow of Instagram models. Any wealth and status you lack, you can perform. What I received wasn't a crash course in Formula 1—in fact, Formula 1 only became more mystifying to me—but journalism, as viewed by the other side. The great irony of the other side is that they need journalism. The petrochemical companies, deeply powerful institutions, need journalists to write about all the things they attach themselves to that are not being a petrochemical company. Formula 1, on a rapacious tangent for growth and new markets, needs journalists to spread the good word of the richest sport in the world. Unfortunately for the other side, journalism still remains a double-edged sword. Send me on an experience and I'll have an experience. Sadly, I suffer from an unprofitable disease that makes me only ever capable of writing about the experience I'm having. The doctors say it's terminal.

What?  K?  why is that all about you??

the line about their outfits costing more than her internal organs was brilliant though. So vivid. So gross. Perfection.

It's a bit of a weird direction to come at criticizing the sheer nauseating wealth of this world - she tries to be sorta "everyman" in some bits but then in others the liberal academic snob vibes really take off, which makes for an uneven piece that felt like she just sat down, thought about what she could actually say about F1, realized she had some weird competing things to say and said, "fuck it" and mashed all her notes together into one monster piece, nobody edited it and they just printed the damn thing.  And then realized what they'd done and pulled it.

[gemini79]

It sounds like she was the wrong "journalist" for the job.

[lessel]

Now, of course, it's a story that the story got pulled. Washington Post gift link: wapo.st/4c0hEwS. (Has a link to the archived full article.)

[pixy0stix]

I wasn't interested until they yanked the story.

[wawa]

Mar 6, 2024 8:22:36 GMT -5 gemini79 said:

It sounds like she was the wrong "journalist" for the job.

why the quotes?

[wawa]

Mar 6, 2024 8:58:40 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I wasn't interested until they yanked the story.

yanking the story feels like a huge huge confirmation of all the less flattering thngs she said about F1 sponsors and the sport itself having a too-cozy relationship with the journalists covering things, since nobody calls them out on their shit ever because they're all too busy enjoying their fancy people access.

[pixy0stix]

That took forever to read. She definitely needed an editor.

I think I'm most thrown off that she sees elite cycling as an everyman sport.

[msmerymac]

I have a friend who went to the Monte Carlo Grand Prix about a decade ago and said the billionaires all have massive yachts anchored in the harbor so they can watch from there.

[gemini79]

Mar 6, 2024 10:54:46 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 6, 2024 8:22:36 GMT -5 gemini79 said:

It sounds like she was the wrong "journalist" for the job.

why the quotes?

I'm not able to easily access the article and tbh, based off what I read, I know her style isn't mine.

This seems to be a specific type of "journalism," which like you said..is about her thoughts, her experience..basically all about her. It could be argued that it's opinion..im not sure.

I would guess that the editors at Road and Track..which does do lifestyle pieces but is also about technology, performance etc..ALSO questioned if her style was the type of "journalism" they wanted for their brand. That's why the quotes. She can say it is..but others can say it's not..or it's not right for their brand.

[spinnaker5]

Mar 6, 2024 11:15:01 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I think I'm most thrown off that she sees elite cycling as an everyman sport.

Same. Describing tour cycling (more than once) as having started with a bunch of humble farmers in Europe, when these athletes now have a stable of $10k carbon fiber bikes ferried around by their support teams, etc etc, is - a choice. 

I do enjoy McMansion Hell, though. Didn’t realize it was the same writer until reading this thread.