If it's not zebra mussels, Gobi's or Asian carp it's an alleged move by the federal government to take away our fishing rights.
Last week, messages were being received by email about a plan for a federal takeover of sport and commercial fishing not only in salt water, but the Great Lakes and possible inland waters as well.
Thoughts of needing a federal fishing license weren't far behind not to mention the loss of dollars in an already strapped economy.
While there was some outrage, there wasn't as much as I would have anticipated. That could be due to the story, written by BASS senior writer Robert Montgomery, was a little under the radar.
Doing some, checking first with representative Mike Roger's office in Washington, D.C. the with BASS, it came to light that this entire story was false. One truly blown way out of proportion.
As ESPN communications chief Doug Grassin said, "It (the story) was a mistake. It was Montgomery's opinion and was not a balanced piece of writing."
Indeed. It goes without saying Montgomery should have checked sources, or done a more thorough job of fact checking before writing something as inflammatory as this.
Stories that have to do with hunting and fishing and have just a sniff of taking a small part of one of our outdoor sports away, make their way straight from inside the beltway to Michigan and other states that offer these sports in beautiful surrounds like we enjoy.
"Any way you look at it, this sure did a job of rallying people," Grassin said. No doubt, but to what cause?
BASS and ESPN were correct in issuing an apology as soon as the story broke. Now we must try to trust these sources on other topics. Will they be truthful and well investigated or just another opinion piece?
Some are going to say where there is smoke there is fire. That could be. But without facts and actual sources that are willing to be identified, this story should be left to wither away.
Someone from BASS should be writing a formal apology to the White House. It's time to own up when one is in the wrong.
That's exactly why no one paid any attention to it. It was obvious fear mongering and anti-government posturing from the get-go. I found a similar article Online all about President Obama's evil plan to end sport fishing forever. There was absolutely no basis to it at all. Except that the woman writing the article was a self described "Palin fanatic."
ReplyDeleteNote to the writer above: Man, you sure have a lot of typos in your piece. Might want to spell-check before publishing. Otherwise, kind of subtracts from the professionalism of it, and drives ex-English teachers insane!