Dealing with fakers

It's even more annoying when FBI agents do it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/business/media/fbi-chief-backs-agent-who-posed-as-reporter.html?_r=0

 

If you are at the authority level to decide who should be getting credentials issued to your paper (SE, or, I suppose, ASE for Assignments), if you (or anybody else around the desk) don't know who they are, I'd blast back an email at light-speed, demanding (not asking) to know:

1) Who the fuck are you?

2) Have you written for us before? When was the most recent time (precise date)?

3) What is the specific time and place of the event for which you are requesting credentials?

4) Have you covered this event for us before?

5) What precisely do you intend to produce from this event and when can we expect it to be sent? (Leave no doubt he will in fact be expected to submit something.)

6) You have 120 minutes from my transmission of this email to respond.

Assuming they do respond, if even one of their answers doesn't sound and smell just exactly right, send them one more email: "Fuck off and get lost," and immediately zip off an email of your own to the sponsoring organization: "Be advised an individual named Jack Jackoff may present himself to you and request credentials as working under an assignment from our paper. He is not. Please do not issue any credentials to him under the auspices of our organization."


If the dude's answers do check out, inform him that all future credential requests will be made through you, and you will need at least 10 days lead time for any such requests (much longer for events anticipated to sell out).

Also review for him the idea that the process usually goes, 1) You the Sports Editor decide to assign him to a game, and 2) You the SE will secure credentials. The huge majority of the time, he shouldn't even be in the process of actually obtaining credentials.

I've had to deal with a few of these mooks over the years -- almost always the result of some slack-ass predecessor as SE or freeloading publishers or ad staff scamming themselves or their buddies in.

Not too long ago, we had a prep stringer (probably one of our C-level stringers -- we had him doing one or two stories a week on pretty nondescript stuff) start to absolutely pepper us with requests, which became demands, for credentials for NASCAR races halfway across the country.

We turned him down politely at first, then a little bit more firmly, then he threatened to "take it up the food chain." A couple days later Mr. Publisher buzzes on the intercom and says, "I've got Jack Jackoff on the phone, he says he writes prep stories for us."
"Once or twice a week, yeah."
"He says he wants credentials for (rattles off about 9 NASCAR races). We cover NASCAR mostly with wire, right?"
"Almost entirely with wire."
"Have we ever covered the NASCAR races in our state?"
"Not within the last half-decade or more."
"Do you ever anticipate covering them in the future?"
"Not really, not unless our local coverage priorities change. But it would be nice to still be ABLE to get credentials, if at any time in the future we decide we want to do so."
"So I should tell him to shove off?"
"That would be my inclination."
"He got kinda huffy and said if we don't get him these credentials, he doesn't know if he wants to cover cross country or girls' soccer for us any more."
"We'll live."



There were a few wannabe civilians. It's kind of amazing how insistent some of them are. Sometimes they're harmless, but even if so, it's usually temporary, and some disaster scenario is lurking -- they will really screw up the reputation of your staff and your paper with anything from mildly inappropriate to flagrantly intolerable conduct. It can literally take years to undo the damage one of these yokels can do if they piss off the wrong people.

 

You misunderstand, or I wasn't clear.

These people aren't asking for credentials. They are people showing up at stadiums and arenas claiming to work for my company and asking the media relations staff for a credential. They'll have a bag of gear with them and, I suppose, when told they aren't on the list they'll say something like, the credential request must have gotten lost and the media relations will then give them a game day pass.

It seems that it has happened enough that the media relations staff has finally gotten around to asking who these dudes are and why they aren't on the credential request list that gets sent in at the beginning of the season.

They aren't freelancers trying to hustle a buck or a seat in the box. They are fans scamming the system so they can be on the field.

 

Email the schools in your coverage area with a list of staffers. Tell them schools will be informed if a freelancer will be covering an event. If Joe Schmoe isn't on either list, tell them to tell him to buy a ticket and don't try that shit again.

 

I would guess the main way you would find out about this would be when your legit staffer shows up at the gate and is told "somebody else from your joint is already here."
When that happens, go straight to the SID/PR staff and have the faker chucked out. Bang-zoom gone. Failing to do that implies your organization is OK with them being there.

 

We gave word that if they showed up to the PR staff get their drivers license info then tell them to leave.

Then provide that info to me and I was going to turn it in to the local prosecutor and them file charges.

 

I think the only charges that can be filed would be trespassing, since the fakers gained free admission to the event by fraudulent means.

I doubt "impersonating a reporter," in and of itself, is a crime.

So in all likelihood, it's up to the hosting organization as to whether they want to file charges or not. They may not think it's a big enough deal to bother with, so you might have to call the SID/PR director and discuss why it would be a good idea if they did.

 

The only one of these I disagree with is No. 6. I'd give them one day, simply because not everybody is sitting on e-mail, so two hours may be a little too tight a time frame to reply. If they haven't responded by the next day, though, their request goes in the circular file. Otherwise, a very good list of guidelines.

 

I would often get calls from people who said they were at an event and a photographer from our paper or writer from our paper was there and they wanted to see the photos or story.

I figured it was a combo of:

Legit writer/photog on their day off
Someone scamming to get access
Fans seeing someone with a camera or notepad and just assuming they were from the paper.
Little Johnny finally scored so mom assumes paper was all over it.

I think the last was most common.