Letter to the Editor: Nonsense

On March 9, Thoroughbred Daily News published a letter to the editor that lambasted the Thoroughbred industry's media as biased while hiding his or her identity under the cloak of anonymity.

To which I answer without anonymity, nonsense.

I don't really know the motivation of this anonymous toxic waste, although it fits into the pattern of blaming the media for just about everything that goes wrong in an industry or a society, whether characterized as “fake news” or not. The anonymous writer must have some beef with the industry and decided to turn to media bashing.

I covered my first horse race in 1978; I have worked for a major U.S. newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer; and I have been an editor or contributor to Thoroughbred publications, namely the Thoroughbred Record and Thoroughbred Times.

The motivation of most all the journalists I've encountered in that time, which probably number in the thousands, was to get the story and get it right. That means telling both sides of the story. True, I have seen instances where the text may have been influenced by a losing bet, and industry members have at times tried unsuccessfully to throw their weight around in publications.

But those instances are exceedingly rare. To say that these journalists are “dishonest,” to use the word of the anonymous coward, borders on libel. To take the Thoroughbred Daily News as an example, I have known Bill Finley since the early 1980s and have always—always—found him to be honest and dogged in getting the information correctly.

I read T. D. Thornton to help me understand complex topics, and I trust his reporting. I've known TDN Publisher Sue Finley for more than 40 years, and I can attest that her motivation is to present the news in an honest, accurate, and balanced publication.

They and others whose bylines appear in industry publications are not motivated by clickbait or negativity or fearmongering, to again dip into the anonymous writer's bucket by bile.

If you are not accurate, honest, and balanced in your reporting and writing, you fail. Period.

These writers have not failed; some industry members may not like what they write, but you can't please the biased individuals who turn to the anonymous poison pen to spew their grievances. Based on the last paragraph, a rambling dissertation about training champions and, well, I am not sure what, I can't figure out what the grievance is.

The anonymous writer ends with the exhortation or command to “Be better.” From the perspective of almost 58 years in journalism, my experience has been that writers and editors get up each morning determined to be honest, accurate, and balanced in their work and thus to be better day by day.

Don Clippinger, an Eclipse Award winner, was editor of Thoroughbred Record and editorial director of Thoroughbred Times until his retirement in 2009.

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Letter to the Editor: Be Better

Editor's Note: the author of this letter is known to the publishers of the TDN, but has asked to remain anonymous. 

At this point, we have to be skeptical of any news story about the horse business. Most journalists have an agenda, and there are a lot of angry, envious people ready to feed publications what they want to hear. There are also a lot of readers eager to consume such negative stories.

It's a perfect storm of bogusness, with dishonesty at each stage of the pipeline, from the sources through the writers to the readers. This doesn't mean every story about the industry is wrong, but it means wrong will be the default. Clickbait and sensationalism is what they want. Sources of most stories are agitators that pull the strings by contributing to online fearmongering publications. The most intriguing aspect of the horse business is that money alone can't buy you a champion. It's multifaceted–from how horses are sourced to how they are prepped to how they are managed and ultimately trained. Average investors can play the S&P and look smart over time. Average investors can't win the KY Derby or develop champions without excellent infrastructure and laser focus. People always believe they know better and their structure will achieve higher returns. The only way to win with any consistency at the highest level is by retaining the help of proven sources that have established winning trends in the classic and championship races over several decades. Industry participants become very soured by competitors, who win and win at the highest level with regularity. We now more than ever need a level of enforceable accountability from our racetrack and industry publications. As an industry we need to hold our media to a higher standard.

Be Better.

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