Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Credit is Hard to Come By

We are posting the item below, an email that we received from one of our friends, because credit (and respect) is hard to come by.

 

I would like all of you to read this and spread it around. My hubby is a journalist for the North Branch Post Review. He worked his butt off on a story and is now being stomped on by the bigwig news stations and such. He is getting no kudos for this story, just phone calls from people like Inside Edition, Splash News and our local WCCO did a report on it as well.
 
We live in a smaller area and no one gave two-Shits about this story until they saw Pat's write up in the North Branch Paper...Guess what, it's going National now. Not to mention an offer for a contract with 15% going to the people involved. Now, don't get me wrong, we are not looking to gain a dime from this but some recognition would be nice for my hubby!
 
Can you help spread this story around and give the credit where the credit is due???
LeAnn
An injustice is being served...

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj6XtUHobfZKzuzwES2zP7tquoQoJ6Yb9njNLvaEA-k2OmGWyMmQ7Du_0J6aa9hZ-5YseX0vyrH8i8dluvYUs-RKJHw1HX7-bfilTH2z4Omv2jQH_CgPRasLDfnEk9vn-jVQ3h5lWLSZs/s1600-h/keeley1.jpgAnd I am here to make a little difference.

Last week, hubby wrote a damn nice story about a woman who saved a 5-year old little girls life. You can find that
here. This woman, then known as Tia Peterson got married over the weekend and is now Tia Cunningham, had this little girl in her wedding as her flower girl. It's truly an amazing story and Pat did a great job writing it.

I was getting emails from Pat all day yesterday with updates on something that has turned a bit frustrating. We live in a very small area, many times the bigwig news papers and news stations will troll the little local newspapers for some story and basically steal the story from the reporters out here. Not uncommon but never are the kudos given to these little locals who go to great lengths to credit a source for their scoop.

The story of this woman is now going national thanks to Pat's write up of her. Pat was getting calls from
Inside Edition, a magazine/company called Splash, WCCO did a story on her and no credit for how these places found this story.

The grandmother of this girl originally called Pat a few weeks ago and asked if he would do a story about this. Of course he said yes and interviews were done and the story was written.

Pat is very frustrated with this turn of events yet happy that this family is getting some attention for their persistance and abilities. So I wanted to point out that if any of you hear about this, it came from the North Branch Post Review Newspaper compliments to my husband Patrick.

Ironically, our
bigwig newspaper ran ANOTHER story that Pat broke in our area awhile back one in which Pat also received an award for, for his investigative work into the story. The bigwig is a little late with their reporting on this one but all the same, another that they ripped out from a small town reporter who's just trying to earn a living for his family and perhaps some credit once in awhile where credit is due.

UPDATE: One of the women related to this story phoned Pat at work. Apparently Splash News is offering her an exclusive contract to market this story across the globe. She would get 15% of the proceeds...but still no thanks to my husband! Pat's advice to her? Get a lawyer.....more to come.

It is shameful that all too often, things like this occur, so we hope to help, in our small way, rectify an injustice.

Peace.

Bonnie and Walt

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I will be off to read the story and link it (and this post) in my journal.  Dang, the poor 'little guy' continues to get screwed.  Makes me a bit nutty!

Anonymous said...

Thank you both so much. Pat called me when I told him what I did and asked me to stop the emails...didn't want to look like he was whining. He is not whining, I am!

Its just wrong in my eyes and when the big ones step on the little ones the little ones have to speak up!

Anyway, thank you so much again.

Anonymous said...

I saw that story on TV, not sure which channel. It's a nice story, and it's a shame it was taken without credit given to the original reporter. My sympathies to your friend.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure this goes on all the time in the media.  Esp. print.  I hope your friend can get this matter resolved.  
Hugs to you both, Barb  

Anonymous said...

Credit should be given to the original reporter.    The good news is that Keely survived and is doing well.    I enjoyed reading the story that Pat did tremendously!     mark