Best Version Media – Part 5

What follows is a series of interactions between myself and a publishing company called Best Version Media (BVM) that I found to be unsettling and distasteful. It has resulted in me withdrawing my contributions to BVM publications. This story gets a little long, so I will be posting it in several parts. Here is part 5.

After reading the letter in part 4 of this series from PERSON 3 (name not included for sensitivity reasons), I wrote a response to him on 9/15/2020. Here is my letter to PERSON 3.

Dear PERSON 3,

In reading your response to my letter from the company perspective, it seems I need to clarify the point of that letter. My hope was that Best Version Media (BVM) would reconsider the blanket policy of never discussing racial or social issues. That is still my hope.

In response to your personal comments, I have a few personal comments of my own.

Reading your responses, personal though you stated them to be, I was surprised at how unprofessional you were. In my article and letter, I do not attack BVM, you, or any other individual. I did not call BVM names, nor did I do so to you or any other individual. I would expect that you would extend the same basic courtesies to me.

You claim that I advocate that birds should be named for people solely based on skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. This is simply false. Nowhere in either my article or letter do such statements appear. I do advocate for greater diversity and representation in bird names and for greater inclusion in the birding community. I disagree with you that calling for greater diversity, inclusion, and representation can be classified as racist or sexist.

I have been a regular contributor to four different BVM publications over the past four years with no compensation. Given this, I was surprised by your responses. It seems a poor business decision, and again very unprofessional, to attack your own contributors.

I will end by saying that I hope your responses to my article and letter do not represent the “best version” of individuals that your company claims to promote.

Sincerely,

Aaron N.K. Haiman

PERSON 3’s second letter to me will appear in part 6.

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