Originally Posted by indyfabz

That's the part that has me a bit confused. It almost sounds like the staff wanted participant contact information so it could "speak" directly with participants.

"But in a statement this week, Juskiewicz explained that he was offended by the paper's attempt to stop him from communicating with event participants, who he called 'RAGBRAI Nation'

'RAGBRAI’s parent companies (Des Moines Register & Gannett/USA Today) claim 'we will uphold First Amendment principles,' but they refused to offer me that same opportunity to openly speak to the RAGBRAI Nation and answer the hundreds of passionate questions asked about the future of RAGBRAI following the Des Moines Register’s handling of the Carson King story,' Juskiewicz said in the statement.

"'I have always been totally transparent with the RAGBRAI Nation and have earned their trust since my first day in 2003. In these past few weeks, my efforts to communicate with our loyal riders has been consistently blocked as it did not mesh with the company’s PR narrative to spin the Carson King embarrassment.'"

The paper is the owner of the event so it undoubtedly has control over participants' contact information, such as email addresses. I am willing to bet he wanted to email participants directly and was not allowed to do so by the paper. The other possibility is that he wanted to pen an editorial piece but they wouldn't run it. That seems less likely because the event attracts people from all over. How many of them read the "Register"?