Does this strike anybody else as wrong?

Whatever happened to the old saying 'a good journalist never gives up his sources.'

If you have an e-file on your work computer, delete it.
If you have a hard copy of your sources, get it out of the office.
Give them an abbreviated list of people from whom you might get permission to provide their email address ... otherwise, don't give them a damn thing.

 

This is wrong on so many levels.

Yes, they can go into your Outlook and pull addresses. Are they going to know which addresses are local? Of course not.

Lots of good suggestions on here. I wouldn't hand over a single @ .

 

"What's e-mail?"

 

Add me to the list of people saying this ridiculous, and that you shouldn't hand them a damn thing. I know that's easier said than done when they're signing your paycheck ... so I'd give them some fake addresses or some from people who wrote me nasty letters.

 

Start signing up for every free iPod offer and contest you can find on the net with the e-mail of the circ douche. Pretty soon, his/her mailbox will be too much of a mess to do anything with.

 

I'd just give them the e-mail addresses of the people who bombard our company emails with spam everyday.

 

A few years ago, my former paper gave the news staff hundreds of leaflets to hand out as we reported. As a sports writer, I was expected to hand them out at high school games. I threw them all in the trash. The forms had our names on them so the glass office could track if we were selling new subscriptions. I didn't sell a damn one, and they didn't do a fucking thing to me.

This new ploy, sir, is bullshit.

 

Not sure which is worse, but I'll let you guys and gals decide.
A fairly prominent paper in the Southeast has a side site for one of the major schools it covers. That side site is free, but you have to register a real email account that is verified.
The reason this site is free is rather open among staffers: They have been told by execs of the chain (during an in-house presentation) that all those email addresses are being sold to advertisers.
That, to me, is pretty appalling.

 

I used to do this to a co-worker. When I was at a bar or watching a band, there'd always be someone saying "Do you want to sign up for our e-mail list?"
I came into work one day and another co-worker said, "You wouldn't happen to know why so-and-so is on the list for an 80s cover band, would you?"
"Why no," I said, "Why do you ask?"
And I hear him on the phone.
"I've never even been to Nick's Fat City!"

 

Singing them up for some magazine subscriptions would also be a nice touch.

 

When I was in college, a few friends and I rented an off-campus house. Across the street from us lived a grouchy old man and wife, both in their 50s and inexplicably still living in a college neighborhood.

On more than one occasion, he called the police to break up our parties, which in truth, were really not all that loud.

After paying too many $500 noise ordinance fines, my roommates and I had enough.

We signed him and his wife up for several hundred subscriptions of the filthiest porn magazines we could find. Checked the "bill me later" box on all of them.

Sorry to threadjack.

 

I appreciate all the opinions/suggestions and I'm glad to hear most of you are just as appalled. I'll likely be deleting the 'sources' out of my Outlook after transferring them to my Yahoo account...

I won't hand anything over, unless they push it and 'remind' me to get on the ball... then I'll try to give them as much crap as possible... fun stuff.

I don't know anyone in the newsroom who is on board with this, but I'm sure the circulation, advertising reps and creative services people are all-to-eager to help and put themselves in the running for the 'fabulous' prizes...