By Steve Moran

I know I am weird, so many people will think I am nuts, but I had one of my favorite things happen.

I got attacked on LinkedIn for how I interviewed a senior living CEO on one of my livestreams. The disappointing part is that the guy attacking me has a pretty small following, and as near as I can tell, hardly anyone saw it.

Here is what he said:

It was disheartening to watch Steve Moran do this 👇: Side with cringy enthusiasm with a billionaire, bash unions, attack a journalist and their publication, and ask not a single tough question of his guest.

This is NOT what our thought leaders are supposed to be doing in the name of the vulnerable population they are supposed to be advocating for.

The Stranger article in question, so that people may judge for themselves:

And PS, the story mentions that “Neither Clark nor Aegis Living responded to The Stranger’s multiple requests for comment.”

The reason I am disappointed is that controversy/criticism is one of the best ways to get traffic on social media. It is also kind of an honor to be considered worth writing about.  

I responded with this:

  1. What questions should I have asked that I did not?
  2. Dwayne responded very publicly to the Stranger article

(https://www.aegislivingreviews.com/open-letter). His open letter very specifically addressed a number of things in the Stranger article that were simply false. They have not corrected those falsehoods and not published his response, something a responsible publication would do.

  1. I know Aegis and Dwayne are not perfect and don’t get it right all the time. I also know that he works hard at taking care of his team, his residents and his families.

I know that if you have specific concerns about how they are doing things he would like to know about them.

  1. Maybe the problem is that you don’t understand what thought leadership is:

We are not a news organization.

We are not an investigative journalism organization

Everything we publish is, by its very nature, editorial, with the goal of improving the lives of people who live and work in senior living and their families.

Which brings me back to my first question: What questions should I have asked, and how would asking those questions and the answers to those questions make the industry better? 

What humors me most about this post is that the final line of his post is this:

And PS, the story mentions that “Neither Clark nor Aegis Living responded to The Stranger’s multiple requests for comment.”

You would think that responding is very important to my critic, and yet, as of the time I wrote this article, he had not responded to my post.

Here is my request. If you have a big following, please, please, please take a shot at me. I promise to respond; I might actually learn something and get better at what I do, and hopefully lots of people will read your criticism and my response.

PS: If you want to find the original, I am sure it is easy enough to find using the LinkedIn search tool. I chose not to name him because it occurs to me that his big goal was to tap into my network, and I am not interested in doing that.