2021 June 28: Ed Wallace of Wheels Ignores and Understates Facts That Refute His Peloton Narrative
One common tack employed by Ed Wallace is to build a narrative by omitting and understating facts that refute the story being told. This occurred multiple times in the June 26, 2021 edition of Second Hand News (SHN). In the first story, ♫ Ed Wallace reports how exercise equipment maker Peloton was disabling consumer's $4,000 treadmills that are without an active $40/month subscription. This treadmill disabling was the result of a release of a child protection lockout feature that depends on a subscription to function. Wallace’s diatribe goes on for over two minutes. Then, during the last 15 seconds of the story, he mentions that consumers are being a offered a full refund. So, Wallace waits until the end of the story to reveal a fact that undermines entire premise of his narrative. Furthermore, Wallace omits that users will receive a free three months subscription while Peloton works on a solution that allows their treadmills to run with the child protection lockout feature while not requiring a subscription.
To reiterate, Peloton is offering a full refund for likely well-used devices. That refunded $4,000 will purchase a new, higher end treadmill that lacks the unwanted online content features with substantial money left over. And, if that is not desired, Peloton offers a free three-month subscription while it works on solution that allows the treadmill with the child protection lockout feature to run without a subscription. Wallace’s whole narrative that Peloton is "taking hostages" and “engaged in extortion" is revealed to be fake news once all facts are known and presented with the proper weight.
Also of interest from this story is Wallace’s expression of disdain for subscription–based purchases, such as for software package licenses for Microsoft Office and Avid Pro Tools. He laments not just being able to purchase something outright. Yet in the ad immediately prior to this very SHN story, Wallace runs ♫ an advertisement by Hiley Acura for a car lease. A car lease is nothing more that a subscription for a car, which happens to be very lucrative for Wallace’s sponsor yet a poor financial choice for the majority of his listeners. To reiterate, Wallace opposes the subscription model except where it benefits of his sponsors. In other words, Wallace's opinion appears to be for sale.
As to Peloton's actions, Wallace creates a false narrative by omitting facts of which he is aware. Wallace is a repeat offender in this regard, as is documented on this website with the April 17th, 2021 story about Daunte Wright. Wallace claimed without qualification that Daunte Wright was pulled over by police due to an air freshener hanging from his mirror. Wallace repeated this claim three more times without qualification. Hours later during the same show, Wallace acknowledged that he was aware this air freshener claim was credibly contested, but did so only after being challenged by listeners.
In short, this is just another representative instance of Wallace’s Sleight of Hand News.
