Equestrian dictators..
When one didn't think the world could go more bonkers along came the organisation for the Swedish Warmblood Association [SWB] in an attempt to dictate what media can and cannot say.
Oh dear, nothing better than to kick off the weekend with some humour. A friend of mine just sent me a link to an open letter from the editor in chief of the Swedish equestrian magazine of Tidningen Ridsport.
Turns out the Swedish Warmblood Organisation (SWB) is not happy in how they are being portraid in this particular magazine.
So, according to the magazine, SWB held a meeting in between the two parties to express concerns about how the magazine cover topics related to the SWB.
Already here, this story in itself is totally jaw dropping!
But the story goes on, and during their meeting, the representatives for SWB had seriously questioned whether the magazine, and or its staff have an agenda against their organisation.
You cannot make this shit up..
Allegedly [according to the magazine] the meeting was attended by a number of internationally well known SWB representatives including their Chairman Per Jansson, the CEO Helen Uddefors, and last but not least the board member Gustaf Johansson.
According to them they believe the magazine is overly critical and systematically portrays the organisation of SWB in a negative light. They also complained about not getting the opportunity to respond to published articles.
Shut up!
To sum things up they feel that the magazine have a biased approach in how they report about SWB. They even provided a list of past articles they considered being too critical..
Come again what?
[pause for laughter]
I am probably one of the first to criticise media, and if you followed the Hoofbeat Chronicles for a while you already knew this.
But this, you really cannot make this shit up. It is priceless, and I am not sure if one should laugh or cry about it.
Even so, instead of accusing media for not doing their job properly, maybe SWB should try to hire a publicist [lord knows they need one].
Cause a publicist is the kind of person that helps shape and maintain a client’s public image by managing their media relations. They even connect their clients with journalists.
I'm thinking that would probably pan out better than acting like [wannabee?] dictators, and state what the magazine can and cannot do.
A dictator is someone who has absolute power — or who at least behaves as if they do by bossing others around.
Don't we have enough of those kind of clowns around anyway?
So I applaud the magazine for standing their grounds, and also for using their own platform to publish an open letter to the breeding organisation.
To sum things up, this whole thing really is a total "get your popcorn ready moment".
Maybe SWB-gate is just a witch hunt?
But guess what. The above mentioned SWB-enclave already managed to write down their own open letter, and I choose to quote this particular bit;
"SWB also wanted to highlight their perception that a specific journalist repeatedly and consistently uses a negative tone toward SWB."
Since the reporter is a woman maybe SWB-gate is just a good old fashioned witch hunt. Anyhow, I cannot wait to see how this story will pan out, cause I sense we have not heard the end of it just yet!
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Link(s) to things that are mentioned in this article 👇🏻
I used the phrase SWB-gate above. There is actually a private site named SWB-gate that is pretty awesome. So since I "borrowed" their name I believe it's fair to link to their amazing info site about the Swedish Warmblood horse.
What do you think? Please leave a comment in the comment section 👇🏻
