…is that everyone else decides they need to report it.
I had a history teacher in high school who told me that the media is filled with the laziest people on the planet and that 95% of journalists just wait for a story to hit them in the face before they will cover it. Having spent the last 6 months closely watching the media for Eventing Nation, I tend to agree. I have tremendous respect for our friends in the equestrian media who spend all day out in the blazing sun watching and taking pictures, then going back to their hotels to spend half the night writing for websites and magazines, but unfortunately this is just a small fraction of the media. The story here isn’t the story, but rather that the story has officially gone mainstream.
Update: I have heard that the NYT held off on reporting the story because they wanted to let the initial fury die down so that they could delve into the deeper HIV related issues. I think Katie Thomas did a great job with the article, and she really developed the issue of HIV related laws thoroughly. The unfortunate thing is that for most of the NYT’s audience this will be the only article about eventing they will read all year. Unfortunately, in general, the mainstream media only covers our sport when bad things happen.
