Stupid reporter

You should know you are a stupid reporter when. . .

I sent an email to a reporter at The Daily World, a newspaper in Washington state. I was replying to an article he'd written about Myspace.com and the dangers of kids, etc. In it, I asked that he consider using me as an expert for future articles, then listed topics I could be used for, with my home office and cell phone number. I signed it "Jayne" with my signature file underneath, which had my full name and the WHOA and Net Crimes web sites listed. My return email address is "JA Hitchcock whoa@haltabuse.org."

His initial reply to me:
What's your full name? Where do you live? How old are you? Stuff like that would be important in a pitch letter like this.

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Um, hello? Don't you know how to read an email? Look at the signature and return address. How old am I? What do you need that for? Where do I live? Look at the area code in the phone number I gave you and gee whiz, Sherlock, do a search to see what state I'm in.

No, I didn't reply like that, but more politely.

His response:

An age is great so people, teens who you would mostly be commenting about since they're the ones who use MySpace, will know who it is that is talking to them and telling them information.

Thanks for the e-mail, though.

Best of luck to you in the future and finding other newspapers.

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ROTFL. Guess he doesn't watch TV or read other newspapers. Then he would have seen me on CNN or Montel or one of the other shows I've done or read the New York Times article, People, etc.

Gee, you think he would have at least gone to the WHOA and Net Crimes web sites to do some research before sending such a stupid answer. He must be 12 years old. Definitely not a seasoned journalist.

So, you should know you're a stupid reporter when you send replies like the above.

Comments

Anonymous said…
They really should start hiring some literate people! Gee, can't read, doesn't know how to use the Internet but writes about it! Send me his contact info and I'll wait a couple weeks so that it's not *too* obvious and then send him a heartfelt "have you ever heard of Jayne" letter. Of course, I do have the feeling that anything you might say would be mangled by this guy.
Anonymous said…
Afterthought - A reporter who doesn't know how to check out his sources? Otherwise he could have easily found the answers, as you suggested. As for age, although totally irrelevant despite his (poor) reasoning, you have pictures and dates, etc. out there. Not too difficult to come up with an age range. Dumb, dumb, dumb. (or lazy)(or both!)
Unknown said…
Hi Jayne,

I just discovered your blog and am having fun following every link to discover more about you.

Let me just throw this comment in...sometimes the signature files don't arrive because some email programs and email servers in the process of passing along and 're-coding' the email, translating as they pass things off to each other, and the signature files are filtered out by a spam filter, too.

Your signature file which you send in good faith may not arrive to be read depending on a number of mail server factors along the way.

So, when I am passing along important contact information I do not rely solely on the addendum of a separate file to handle all of my contact data.

Enjoying your site!

David
Netcrimes said…
Oh David, it was much more than just the signature file. I put all my info about my organization and what I do and where I live in the *body* of the message. Besides, my signature is just text and is automatically inserted in the email at the end of each message. It's not a graphic or anything fancy and to top it off, my email address was whoa@haltabuse.org. He's still a stupid reporter (LOL)

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