Hi folks. I want to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to address an important issue.
As the publisher of this site (and president of Pedaltown Media Inc., the company that owns it), everything that is written on these pages — and everyone who writes them — is a reflection on my business, and in some ways, me. Over the past several months it has come to my attention that one of our writers conducted himself in a way that made me and others feel uncomfortable. Specifically, this was a freelance reporter named Marcus Griffith that I had hired to write an in-depth story about the N. Williams Avenue project.
Griffith had written 20 articles for BikePortland going back to June 2010. He was doing a great job building up our Vancouver and Clark County coverage and I was happy to have his help. When he expressed interest in writing about the Williams project, to dig deeper into some of the sensitive issues around it, I felt like he could handle it so I gave him the green light.
With my support, Griffith embarked on the story.
During questioning of a source for the story via email, Griffith treated a member of our community in a way that I do not condone or approve of.
In part due to my gut feeling about that email exchange, I cancelled the assignment and never ran the story.
Since then, additional circumstances have led me to a decision to make a clean break with Griffith. I want to make it clear to everyone that Marcus Griffith is no longer affiliated with BikePortland. (I have reviewed the 20 articles he has written and they all stand on their own, so I have decided to leave them up.)
The trust people have in my decisions and in BikePortland, is extremely important to me. I have spent nearly seven years building this trust and I will do everything I can to maintain it.
I am not allowing comments on this post. You are free to contact me directly if you’d like.
Thank you.
