http://jalopnik.com/5582380/how-the-truth-about-motorcycle-helmets-got-a-journalis...
Dexter Ford, fine journalist and author of the single most important piece of modern motorjournalism, 2005's Blowing The LId Off, which called into question the Snell Foundation's science and exposed their standards as creating unsafe motorcycle helmets, has been fired by Motorcyclist after 30 years.
Ford recently wrote a piece for the New York Times in which he reported on Snell's changing standards for 2010, making salient points regarding potential consumer confusion: namely that helmets meeting Snell's 2005 standards can be manufactured until 2012, and that the different standards are only denoted on helmets inside the lining, while the exterior stickers are nearly identical.
According to leaked internal emails from Motorcyclist's editor Brian Catterson, mounting pressure from Arai and Shoei - major advertisers who pulled their money after 2005's article - prompted Catterson to fire Ford to save his own job by keeping their ad dollars, and therefore keeping his bosses happy.
Major print media is dying, and taking good investigative journalism with it in its death throes. Nothing new, I suppose, but this is a topic that caught my attention. I had the pleasure of corresponding with Dexter after the publication of "Blowing The Lid Off," as I was working in the motorcycle industry at the time, and that article turned my world on its ear. I'm glad to see he's still challenging the status quo, but sad to see it cost him his job.
But being known as an ethical person is always a good thing, unless one associates with the unethical. Here's hoping Dexter lands on his feet, and keeps writing the sort of articles that question accepted wisdom.
