Singletrack

EDITORIAL
COMING
CLEANER
WORDS CHIPPS
There’s a change in the air. It’s not about news and readers any
more. Or authors and editors. The already grey lines between
us and them, and you and us (or us and you, and them…) are
blurring further as magazines launch YouTube channels and
bike brands create their own stories to run in self-published,
glossy illustrated brochures.
Meanwhile, riders are often sponsored more because of
their Instagram followers than their race results. Or perhaps
they don’t race at all, simply riding bearded and shirtless across
a glorious mountain scene and being given pink hearts for the
effort.
It’s all part of constant change across the whole world
of media. Anything goes and everyone is trying to find the
limits of each medium. Web-only magazines are considering
running some issues in print while blogs, or ‘vlogs’ on
YouTube can earn you a living if you can rise through the
swamp of copycat celebrity wannabes with the same idea. It’s
the new West, and it’s wild.
In this kaleidoscope of media, it can be hard to see the
wood for the trees, or the trees for the sustainably grown
post-consumer waste recycled paper. And, often, it can be
hard to work out the motivation behind people’s actions. Are
they ’gramming their breakfast because it’s tasty? Or because
they get a discount if they do? Is a magazine writing about a
trail centre because it’s interesting, or because it’s being paid?
Or because it’s being paid AND it’s interesting? Is it still
interesting if it’s interesting AND funded?
These and many other questions crop up regularly in
my world, if they don’t in yours. On one hand, nothing has
actually changed. The media has always been supported by
advertising and copy sales. Those advertisers are still there,
and still wanting access to those readers. And those readers
are usually happy to pay the price for their entertainment –
whether it is by sitting through an advert or by paying more
(or at all) to not see an ad.
Then there are all the below-the-line costs that are equally
omnipresent. Like the transport needed to get to wherever
or whatever you’re writing about. Sometimes it’s paid by a
bike company eager for you to shoot its bike in a beautiful
landscape, while you get the bonus of visiting a beautiful
place that will make for great photos. Sometimes the venue
itself will have invited you. The readers get to hear about this
amazing place and, just perhaps, they might consider going
the next time they’re passing…
We’ve decided that it’s getting harder to tell who’s doing
what for whom. And even if the motivations are still the same,
and a free breakfast doesn’t go towards a great write-up, there’s
an unnecessary mist of doubt over things when there might
not previously have been.
So we’re taking the pioneering step of always stating
(and thanking) where any help has come from when writing
our features. Nothing has particularly changed; we’re just
lifting the curtain more. Sometimes we’ve taken a flight, or
been provided with a hotel room – and often that’s the only
way we can afford to travel to places. Sometimes a guide has
shown us around. And often we’ve been bought meals. Just
how free those meals are will probably depend on your point
of view, but in the name of transparency, whenever we’ve had
some kind of help with a feature (with transport or hotels or
guiding or whatever), then we’ll tell you. And if a feature was
provided to the magazine for free, or in exchange for adverts
or coverage, we’ll tell you that too.
Hopefully we can encourage magazines from other
publishers to do the same in future. They probably won’t, but
Singletrack has never minded being a little bit different to the
rest.
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