IMO, Christine Brennan is a solid, professional journalist. Dave Lease is not. That said, I don't always agree with Brennan's approach or with her assessments, and she also seems to be aggressively opportunistic in how she covers certain topics. However, she's at least professional and she apparently follows the rules and guidelines of her profession. Lease OTOH has crossed the line too many times in berating and making fun of people in skating. He's recently been trying or at least pretending to smooth over his approach to covering the sport, but he's still never owned up to nor apologized for his mistakes. Instead, he blocks all forms of criticism. He only wants to receive praise and adulation. Lease seems to fancy himself as the Walter Winchell of figure skating (the powerful 1950s era gossip columnist who during the McCarthy era willfully destroyed people's careers with the popular platform he controlled in newspapers of that time). I do not want Dave Lease leading any kind of charge to reform the ills of figure skating. He needs to acknowledge and address his own faults first.
Lease has a following partly because he tries to be the first at breaking news and being in the know about everything, especially scandalous news. With his gossipy approach, his groupies and his insider enablers, he has often tended to create controversies and negativity. USFS needs to make an effort to become more transparent, and to freely allow more in-depth and critical coverage of pressing issues, instead of ceding that territory to Lease's snarky purview.
Regarding SafeSport, from what I see at this point, the investigation was mishandled. Lease and Brennan said that SafeSport is understaffed and underfunded. Then why was such an entity allowed to conduct any kind of investigation into sexual misconduct in any sport!? Lease should stop equating Nassar's behavior with the allegations against Coughlin, in the absence of any confirmed evidence. Lease is also out of bounds in his claim that fs fans are at fault for pointing fingers at gymnastics due to Nassar's horrendous behavior, while being surprised by the allegations against Coughlin. I hope everyone realizes sexual misconduct is not the fault of any particular sport, but that all sports should be diligent in addressing such behavior within their ranks. In the same self-serving breath, Lease seems to blame John Coughlin for taking his life. Lease's reasoning is that Coughlin should have waited it out because some SafeSport investigations ultimately resulted in the accused being exonerated after having been suspended. But by that point, anyone accused who was later exonerated, was already facing living the rest of their life with a damaged reputation. That's now of course, a moot point since Coughlin is dead.
Unfortunately, I do not think USFS can adequately handle the enormity of this situation. But neither do we need Dave Lease leading the charge either! Please I hope someone responsible and respected can be brought in to help assess the next step to take. I hope the next step will be, as I said after the end of January, that a full and complete investigation is undertaken, and that the results are documented and revealed. There should also be research conducted and an announcement of reforms implemented to effectively address such complaints. At this point in time, I think counseling should ensue immediately for everyone, including all coaches, and all skaters currently competing.
