I know I tread dangerous and controversial waters by addressing this, but the Bowienet news item for May 16 entitled Five Years…That’s All We’ve Got has nothing whatsoever to do with David Bowie or his current projects and everything to do with the news editor’s political, non-Bowie related views. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking his views, I respect anybody who takes up a cause to save the planet (in fact, the Webmaster and I are huge believers in conservation), but the Bowie News section on David Bowie’s official website is not the appropriate place to do so. The news section is entitled Bowie News and it should report on, you know, news about David Bowie. This news item appears above another news item about tonight’s High Line Festival events and has absolutely nothing to do with Bowie, other than a tenuous thread drawn between the lyrics from Five Years and the article from the WWF.
Now whether a BowieNet reader or subscriber thinks the human race is sending the planet to hell in a handbasket named Global Warming or thinks global warming is the latest political fad doesn’t matter. The section for Bowie News has historically reported on news about, well, Bowie. Isn’t that one of the reasons why the paid subscribers and other fans regularly visit the site? BowieNet is not our one-stop shop for news that vaguely has something to do with Bowie. If it were, then the readers would see hundreds of news items in a month reporting on every person who quotes David or mentions his name. But it’s not – it is not meant to be the Wal-mart of news sections on official fan sites. What irks me is not the inclusion of this news item on the site in general, it’s just the location. All BowieNet subscribers know that there is a forum entitled Politics and Religion, and that is the place for this post. Furthermore, I’m quite confident that BowieNet readers are savvy enough to read blogs for news pertaining to their own political views, if they even care that much about politics. Neither the casual BowieNet browser nor the paid subscriber deserve to have the BowieNet news editor’s personal, non-Bowie related views thrown at them and taking precedence over news items about current projects such as the High Line Festival. Surely we deserve better than that.