Press Coverage Concerns

[Trail_Fanatic]

The Two Trackers 4WD Club had their 8th Annual Trail Clean Up this last Saturday. It's an ALL VOLUNTEER event with dumpster/ dumping charges paid through the NFS and DNR 'Michigan Coalition for Clean Forests' initiative. 90 cubic yards of trash weighing in at over 37,000 pounds, over 350 tires, and 24 gallons of waste oil were hauled out of the woods by VOLUNTEERS spending their OWN gas money, time, and effort to do so.

The GR Press sent a photographer out to the event for an hour in the morning and had Howard Meyerson of the 'Outdoors' section call the event coordinators for phone interviews.

BOTH of the 'interview-ees' have RESERVATIONS about the accuracy of the article that will be in the Friday 5/6/06 edition of the GR PRESS OUTDOORS section. It was felt that Mr. Meyerson was trying to coerce negative comments from both the event coordinators AND National Forest Service personnel that PROBABLY have NO idea what the event is about! If he quotes any NFS representative OTHER THAN Chris Fredrics of the Baldwin Ranger District the response will be SUSPECT. Chris is our contact and as far as I know is the ONLY one that knows enough about it to offer an opinion.

Please pick up the article and read it with caution.
If it negatively portrays the 4x4 community in ANY way, I feel we should write letters to the editor correcting the article.

IF ANYONE wants more information please feel free to get a hold of me through this site or by email at: Trail_Fanatic@Hotmail.Com

THANK YOU

[1stREALjeep]

how or better yet WHY would the paper want to put a negative spin on cleaning up the forest and trails? post a link to the article for those of us who dont get the paper the article will appear in, if you can.

[Trail_Fanatic]

That's what we can't understand.

We're really hoping it's our imagination and the article will be great.

It just seemed like the questions were from an odd perspective and the tone wasn't as upbeat as one might expect when that volume of trash has been removed.

Heck, that puts our 8 year total at 460 cu. yards.

That's a little bit more than a trash bag.

[BRUSER]

Pat: I was there and participated in the clean up. It was an awsome task completed by a great group of people.
The problem may be( I have not read the article of course) that the people doing the clean up are from a sector of the outdoorsmen and women that use up valuable resources and devistate the environment with the vehicles they drive offroad.

For a liberal press, we are not a group that they would "praise" no matter what good we were doing. Just my opinion. I will not be suprised if the article has this type of liberal slant...

Anyway I'll reserve true judgement till I read it. And once again, we didn't do it to get the publicity, we did it because its the right thing to do.

[Trail_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by BRUSER

we did it because its the right thing to do.

WELL SAID!

With the effort everyone put forth, I would hate to see ANY type of 'slanting' but fear you've hit the nail on the head.

I'm not sure what was said to Jeff, but he kept trying to swing our conversation back to 'studies' that indicate "billions" of dollars spent on damage repair caused by illegal ORV use.

Liberalism?

I fear so, but like you will hope for the best tomorrow.

[Chiefwoohaw]

Sucks that your good deed might get twisted!! Keep us informed!!

[KaiserJeep]

pretty decent article, here it is:
http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ss...ss?SPOU&coll=6

[Trail_Fanatic]

Someone buy Mr. Meyerson a BEER!

Hell, let's ALL buy him a beer!


That's a FANTASTIC article.

I love what Mr. Russell (Chris Fredrics' boss) has to say about us.
He must have asked Chris for more detail!
We've NEVER met, but I'll bet he knows who we are NOW !

Ada Takacs is the DNR official that actually cuts the voucher for our dumpsters each year.

THANKS AGAIN TO EVERY ONE THAT CAME OUT TO HELP!