The speed and power of the internet was once again displayed as an opinion story posted on ESPNOutdoors.com, but not clearly identified as such, started a firestorm of controversy.
On March 9th, the outdoor oriented website posted an article about the work of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, an Obama administration project to look into stewardship of marine resources.
The article's author, Robert Montgomery, wrote in his opening paragraph "The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters."
This, along with the rest of the article, started internet rumors about a possible ban on recreational fishing that were picked up by various conservative news sites both online and broadcast.
On Thursday, Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (PA 3rd-D), issued a press release reassuring sportsman that the rumor of a fishing ban is false.
"“Recreational fishing is a beloved pastime and tradition in our region—not to mention a valuable local industry. Regrettably, [a] wildly inaccurate [story] is circulating online, fueling a rumor that the federal government plans to ban recreational fishing. That claim is entirely untrue. Neither the administration nor the Congress is seeking to ban recreational fishing, plain and simple,” said Rep. Dahlkemper.
On March 10th, Executive Editor Steve Bowman of ESPNOutdoors.com posted this clarification of Montgomery's article.
In Bowman's posting, he writes, "ESPNOutdoors.com inadvertently contributed to a flare-up Tuesday when we posted the latest article in a series of stories on President Barack Obama's newly created Ocean Policy Task Force, a column written by Robert Montgomery, a conservation writer for BASS since 1985. Regrettably, we made several errors in the editing and presentation of this installment. Though our series has included numerous news stories on the topic, this was not one of them -- it was an opinion piece, and should have been clearly labeled as commentary.
And while our series overall has examined several sides of the topic, this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view. We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view -- if they chose to respond -- throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column."
To read the Robert Montgomery's original posting, click here.
