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The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

What Is Motorcycle News?

By Paul Crowe

“Motorcycle accident claims life of rider.” “Motorcycle group raises money for children.” Well, that about sums it up. Those two topics make up about, oh, I don’t know, maybe 90 percent or more of motorcycle news in the main stream press. Throw in the occasional, “Local man builds custom choppers.” and the press is pretty well finished. Job done, let’s move on.

The Kneeslider does a lot of digging and sometimes you have to find the connection between stories about technical advances elsewhere and how it affects motorcycles, but not always. If reporters looked at motorcycles the same way they look at cars we might have more coverage of motorcycle racing in the sports section instead of endless NASCAR. We might have stories about all of the motorcycles built in America (or elsewhere) and how those companies and their manufacturing plants are faring in the world economy instead of non-stop reporting about troubles at GM and Ford. Auto shows get plenty of TV, why not motorcycle shows in Tokyo or Milan? SEMA gets covered, why not Indy? With fuel efficient transportation on a lot of minds you would think motorcycles would be a natural for Roger Reporter.

I can hear it now … “Nicky Hayden, some young guy from Kentucky races the Europeans in that exotic MotoGP or something, maybe we should put someone on that.” “They make Honda motorcycles in America? Get a reporter over there.” “I heard about some hybrid motorcycles at some Tokyo show, do we have anybody in Japan?”

If your idea of motorcycles is not born of personal experience you fall back on stereotypes of what everyone “knows” about motorcycles. Everyone drives, not everyone rides so what can we expect? Leather clad Harley riders and a sportbike crash at high speed, what more do reporters know … or need to? I’m not complaining about any of this because when you know how poorly researched and limited most press coverage is on the subject of motorcycles, it’s a lot easier to notice how quickly that coverage becomes almost comical on anything more complex.

Posted on December 10, 2005 Filed Under: Down Time, Economics and Politics, Motorcycle Business


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Comments

  1. aaron says

    December 10, 2005 at 1:46 pm

    you forgot my favorite story…”the modern motorcycle is a dangerous, overpowered death trap (unless it’s a harley)”

  2. RATTSBIKES says

    December 10, 2005 at 8:56 pm

    It never ceases to amaze me at just how inaccurate the news and reports from around the globe are. I wonder do we really want more motorcycle news out there for the general public or are we best left alone, and motorcyclists can get thier news from where they do now without any crap to filter through??
    RATTS

  3. Oli says

    December 12, 2005 at 4:32 am

    If you do a Google Alerts email for motorbike and motorcycle – you will get the figures quoted above – a good 90% of calls are about accidents and deaths – some mention does go to get away vehicles!

    It just makes you wonder how this industry makes any money at all with this much bad publicity!

    Oli

    http://businessandit.co.uk

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