Not that I ever watch the Today Show, nor have I heard of Mia Freedman, but yesterday morning I was made aware of someone on national television bashing on Cadel’s victory at the Tour de France.
Immediately after the video (in rage) I commented on the YouTube page. Unfortunately I resorted to calling her names (an idiot) and over the course of the day, despite the thousands of hate messages Mia has received over twitter, on her blog and on YouTube, my comment was given the thumbs up by others and it’s now “stickied” and highlighted at the top of the video page.
I spent a lot of yesterday spreading the video footage as much as I could through my network (facebook, twitter, blogs and forums). I’m still mad, maybe I’m looking for an apology? Whilst her opinion is valid and worthy of discussion the timing of it is awful and the way she delivered her opinion stinks. Either way I think she’s stuffed up, hit a lot of nerves and made more enemies than fans and I doubt that all the advertising revenue she’s gotten from the traffic to her banner filled web site would suffice for all the abuse that’s been directed directly at her.
I’ve failed to read all the responses on her blog, and various other media but this morning Bridie O’Donnell, a professional cyclist and doctor responded with a well thought out open letter worth reading.
I still maintain it was a ‘stunt’ to lift her profile and generate traffic Justin. We both know people LOVE to hate on cyclists, especially X5 driving, daytime TV watching ‘suburbanites’, she is appealing directly to her demographic. Best ignored? I think so.