Charlotte Area Bicycle Alliance (CABA)

NOTE: We hear from one blog reader that Tara has been voted by CL readers as columnist they are most “tired of “….and WBT-1110 radio’s market share has been declining…

Irresponsible journalism at its worst…

Tara Servatius’ column in Creative Loafing a few weeks ago struck a nerve among area bicyclists, and rightly so.

Her rant rendered bicycling as a form of social deviancy getting special treatment from local government thru bike lanes, traffic calming and other allegedly wasteful investments, East Blvd.’s current improvements being a case in point. She characterizes a bicyclist as someone eager to provoke a crash so he or she can initiate a law suit against the innocent driver. Her column was actually a reprint of her earlier live commentary on WBT News Talk radio when she rudely cut off a caller without allowing the person to explain his point of view. At first CABA decided to ignore Tara dismissing her efforts as one more example of shock journalism, assuming that both Tara and her bosses would regard any responses pro or con as a sign their media “brand” was successful. But when we received several emails including one from Melissa Bell of Inside / Out Sports that her shop told CR to cease delivery of Creative Loafing, we decided to take action.

We called the editor and had a civil conversation. He agreed to run a lengthy rebuttal column which was posted immediately on the CL blog. It will be reprinted in the July 28 issue. We hope you like it, and we hope you keep emailing your responses to them.  If you are a bike shop or other business you might also consider cutting off delivery of CL.

Our rebuttal is a cooperative response with Ann Groninger, Attny with NCBikeLaw and Melissa .

• To read the article – CLICK: Tara’s Tirade
• To read blog responses – CLICK: Creative Loafing CLog
• To read the full CABA rebuttal – CLICK: Rebuttal

Thanks to all for your support of bicycling as a community-wide asset.

Martin Zimmerman, Executive Director / CABA