Oh, come on - guys. Its a well known “OPINION EDITORIAL” section of this website and everyone knows, that opinions shared with aviation colleagues have nothing to do with the editorial direction or bias of editors or AVweb as a whole.
As a former AVweb editor and guest editor (now retired by circumstance) I can attest to the simplicity of how this all works. No malice involved. No political agenda followed.
Disabling comments would have caused the smell and claim of censorship, not disabling comments invites all kind of politically charged discourse - which - if not moderated properly - will cause Russ to suffer for it. He suffers anyways, because his Email probably hasn’t stopped dinging.
No cigar smoke filled editorial office with round tables in which the next best story is discussed - no list of guest articles to better rile up the readers. Its really simple stuff.
Read it, determine if it is of any significance to GA or BA and then push the publish button. Its going to do what it does anyways.
I got tons of hatemail for my Common Sense vs. E-Everything article published years ago. My article included my name and what I did for a living, as well. Was that “advertising”?
Its quite normal human behaviour to disagree with the author of a piece and still do so with a minimum of class or style.
To accuse AVweb or Russ of having done anything wrong here is grotesque and shameful.
My tip: Run a publishing platform as responsible editor in chief for a few weeks, earn a living with this stuff in our sometimes highly toxic industry and then return with your findings on what constitutes popular content.
I have worked with Russ for what - 12 - 15 years and while we most certainly don’t fish from the same pond, I never found a reason to accuse him of hype or clickbait or outward editorial bias. Thats Bull.
The writer of this blog wrote a guest editorial. He submitted it for review and had the very same right to have it published here - as all of you would - if you took the time to write and submit one. That would increase a pool of guest editorials to select from.
How about a counter- piece, next week?
Think about it!
Lets get over ourselves - shall we?