OWAA Board lets emotions get in its way

Press coverage of a “feud” between the leadership of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and NRA President Kayne Robinson over his remarks at OWAA’s annual conference June 22 in Spokane, Washington has been lopsided and incomplete.

Robinson’s offense was to disagree with the Sierra Club, an environmental organization with a high-profile animal rights extremist on its board. Some insiders suggest that OWAA is “turning green” and moving away from its fishing and hunting roots. Many of today’s outdoor writers cover hiking, camping, bird-watching, mountain biking, rafting and berry picking; anything but guns or rods.

Into this environment stepped ardent hunter Robinson, who – during a breakfast hosted by the NRA – objected to a Sierra Club publication attacking the Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus and two NRA Board members, Rep. Don Young of Alaska and Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho. Robinson clearly noted, “…it is the Sierra Club’s right (to editorialize), but I point out that virtually every elected official they discussed favorably in their literature is dedicated to banning guns. It’s pretty hard to hunt without guns.” He’s got a point and a right to make it, especially when NRA paid for the microphone.

Yet the OWAA Board of Directors voted 11-4 to send a letter of rebuke to Robinson. Several outdoor writers lambasted Robinson’s remarks, but their disdain is not universal in the outdoors community.

Outdoors editor Rich Landers at The Spokesman-Review wrote, “The NRA continues to blindly advocate ‘Vote your gun.’ So narrow. So sad.” He also added this gem: “Robinson is trying to recruit uninformed hunters with the same big talk and promises a pimp uses to lure vulnerable girls into his realm.” An OWAA member since 1977, Landers presumably was setting an example for his peers.

Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle asserted, “The National Rifle Association locked, loaded and fired its best shot at the Sierra Club…only to have the blast explode in its face.” Stienstra is an OWAA board member, a fact omitted by press accounts quoting his remarks, and by his own newspaper.

The OWAA Board’s action hardly reflects a unanimous opinion of the membership. Almost immediately, a protest letter was penned by two past-OWAA presidents. It quickly garnered more than 125 signatures, including those of 15 past presidents. They reminded the current OWAA officers that “the OWAA is a journalist’s organization, not a political organization.” They said the Board’s action “was based upon emotion and personal opinions, not with the best interests of the organization as the primary focus.”

“We are a group of communicators,” they said, “who should embrace discussion, debate, differences of opinion and the rights of Americans, on every side of an issue, to speak their minds openly.”

Behind the flap is a bitter battle over access to public land. Robinson wants improved access to millions of acres never actually set aside as “wilderness” but inaccessible to most people, through road closures or “roadless area” designations. The Sierra Club and its cheerleaders would keep out people whose age, wheelchairs, crutches or other impairments limit their mobility. True wilderness and wildlife habitat is vital and must be vigorously protected, but one needn’t get vicious toward those who want to share it.

Some of the nastiest rhetoric in this debate came from the Lewiston, Idaho, Tribune in March. Columnist Patrick McGann wrote, “The trouble is too many fishers and hunters have their heads up their asphalt fetish.” He added this insult: “Most of the legions of people insisting on a driveway right up to Brutus-the-bull’s living room simply have more invested in their beer bellies than their boots.” He suggested that “if you are serious about catching fish and killing game, you are nuts to side with the two-strokers,” an apparent allusion to ATV riders.

McGann’s remarks are surprising. He’s a former vice president of Fishing & Hunting News, perhaps the nation’s most serious hook-and-bullet publication. It’s a magazine that advertised ATVs and promoted access while McGann was happily at the helm making the big bucks.

Only Robinson suggested that the other side has a right to its opinion. His critics, and the OWAA board members who sent their nastygram, apparently don’t share that philosophy. They’ve declared open season not only on the NRA, but on the very sportsmen upon whom they once depended for a living.