Threads related to Colorado mountaineering accidents but please keep it civil and respectful. Friends and relatives of fallen climbers will be reading these posts.
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ultimategully wrote: ↑Tue Oct 21, 2025 12:12 pm
Yeah, it's cool for people to post "opinion" articles on the internet, it's also cool for us to flame such poorly written articles filled with dumb ideas on an internet forum.
blazintoes wrote: ↑Tue Oct 21, 2025 7:49 am
Is it cool to bash on men nowadays? Was the 5280 article an opinion piece?
It's an opinion piece.
I've been following this post and thinking about chiming in to point that out, but... just got lazy. Anyway, it's under "News & Features," and it's definitely a feature.
As a former journalist and columnist (who still gets occasional requests to write articles and columns), I know there's a big difference in how you approach these different formats. News articles are objective. The writer has to take their opinions, beliefs, and all that stuff out of the story and focus on the facts. Columns (or features, as they're referred to here) are a chance for the writer to take an angle and express a point of view. You probably know all that already I don't agree with the angle the writer took for this story, but it's her opinion and she has a right to it. We don't all have to agree with it.
I'm not going to attack her, though. Writing's hard. Getting read is hard. Especially today, with all the free content available - and a lot of it generated by AI engines trained on actual writers' work (for which the authors weren't compensated... Don't even get me started on that discussion - currently in a class action suit over several of my books).
Sometimes writers resort to retelling stories that have gotten a lot of attention in the past, and writing them from a fresh angle. Clickbait? Maybe. I can't say. I'm not that writer's head. But if that's the case, she definitely succeeded in her objective of being read. And like they say, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
Yeah, it's cool for people to post "opinion" articles on the internet, it's also cool for us to flame such poorly written articles filled with dumb ideas on an internet forum.
This. Opinion pieces are fine. The Economist is one giant opinion piece, and its opinions are very well constructed and well reasoned.
But genderizing SAR is absurd. None of the skills for conducting SAR are gender dependent. As the prior poster noted, perhaps the biggest factor was a fresh set of eyes.
Unless it is The Onion, opinion pieces should offer opinions based on sound logic.
I don't agree with the angle the writer took for this story, but it's her opinion and she has a right to it. We don't all have to agree with it.