I, an editor at the Podium Cafe, resolve to use everything in my power in 2010 so that the front page of the Podium Cafe never looks like this:
If you see the words "Contador" and "Armstrong" in a single story on the front page, and that story is something other than a race preview or report, I authorize -- no, insist! -- that you call me out in the comments. I admit we have had our fun with this polemica in 2009, in part because it had some real news value as long as Contador and Armstrong were on the same team and that team's performance might be influenced by their relationship. And in part because we have fun, even sometimes when we shouldn't. And this was occasionally fun.
But now it's turned into something else. It's not fun, it's tiresome... and yet barely a day goes by without some story somewhere dredging it up. This is, simply, media crack -- like Tiger's mistresses or the Clintons or Princess Di or Britney's underpants. It's a story reporters turn to over and over because, in the absence of something better, it will reliably draw some eyeballs from readership's lowest common denominator. I don't know if Peter Cossins is a bad reporter; more likely he just showed up to work and was asked to translate an online chat at El Mundo... but he quickly fell into quicksand of the universal media mindset where you can't not push the cheap dirt button every time you see it. Also, for whatever reason, Armstrong and Bruyneel are willingly acting as pushers rather than growing up and moving on. Maybe they think they can win some sort of psychological war which will cause Contador to train less out of sadness, or crash during the Tour prologue in a fit of Lance-fueled rage.
Whatever. I can't stop them -- or even influence them in the remotest way -- from peddling this crack to the media. And lord knows I can't even begin to stop the lazy, mindless media bloodhounds from re-chewing the same hidebound nonsense day after day after day. But I can stop the Cafe from looking like these other publications, and can provide a place for people to escape the clutches of another round of "Lance Calls Alberto Ugly" and "Alberto Says Lance Looks Fat". I can admit that there's a problem, which is the first step toward solving it. Please, join me in taking this step, and help me stay the course. Together, we shall overcome.