FLORIDA, (6 Sep 2001) -- Rodale Inc, the US-based publisher of a monthly lifestyle magazine called 'Scuba Diving', which is infamous for biased scuba product reviews, marketing scams and irresponsible policies on the environment, has launched yet another harassment campaign against a respected scientist affiliated with the anti-shark feeding environmental coalition. On August 20, 2001, Dave Taylor, an editor at Rodale's Scuba Diving who has been a strident, emotional and often incoherent spokesman for pro-shark feeding elements in the scuba diving industry, sent the following letter to Dr. William Alevizon and spammed copies of it to the national press: Dr. William Alevizon: This is our official notification to you: Today I am sending your published statements regarding Rodale's Scuba Diving Magazine (found on the cyberdiver.net site) to our lawyers for review and possible legal action under the trade libel/product (sic) disparagement statutes. David Taylor
Rodale's Scuba Diving Magazine Dr. Alevizon's statements were made last year after Taylor's failed attempt to mobilize Rodale's readers in support of a PADI/DEMA-led dive industry coalition against a shark feeding ban. [Ultimately, the industry coalition also failed--go to Environmentalists Defeat PADI, DEMA, Rodale's--Florida Votes to Ban Shark Feeding] Taylor deliberately misrepresented and disparaged anti-shark feeding environmentalists as an "emotional and misinformed minority", although he was fully aware that many respected scientists, environmentalists and international environmental groups, including the Humane Society, supported the proposed ban on shark feeding, as did the vast majority of divers throughout the global diving community. Dr. Alevizon responded to Taylor's blatant attempt to ridicule and belittle the anti-shark feeding coalition by acurately describing Rodale's Scuba Diving magazine as "for all intents and purposes, an industry whore bought and paid for by the PADI/DEMA coalition." In response to Taylor's legalistic harassment strategy aimed at intimidating Rodale's critics, Dr. Alevizon issued the following statement: "This pitiful attempt of a large publication to intimidate critics and silence public comment or opinion speaks more eloquently than I ever could about the journalistic integrity (or total lack thereof) of Rodale's Scuba Diving. The fact that the Taylor message was received in tandom with an token insult from a DEMA marketing guru (John Stewart), and that these two messages were copied to the national press, diving community, and just about anyone else they could think of, only reinforces the notion that the real purpose of these messages was to intimidate and discredit rather than communicate. | | Reef Relief Team (l to r) Dr. Bill Alevizon, Craig Quirolo and Dr. Brian Lapointe. Photo by DeeVon Quirolo In my opinion (if I am allowed to articulate such by the self-proclaimed "Lords of Sport Diving"), these messages constitute just one more expression of a deliberate, coordinated strategy orchestrated and conducted for many years by certain elements of the dive industry to exert disproportionate control over information flow to the diving public. Unfortunately for them (and lucky for the average diver!), such a strategy cannot work in an electronic age with instant global internet communication. My message to divers everywhere: Continue to speak your minds without fear! Taylor and his kind, and all the attorneys they can muster, cannot silence the public in today's global community. Free speech lives!" This is not the first time Rodale has tried to silence its critics with threats of libel lawsuits. Rodale utilized the same intimidation tatic against CDNN recently when consumers and dive operators reacted angrily against their "waivers for ads" scam that sought to harvest email addresses from charter boat liability releases. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
