1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

KC Star columnist victim of an unethical cheap shot

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Shaggy, Aug 24, 2009.

  1. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Any evidence of this? Any at all?
     
  2. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    From a purely pragmatic standpoint, I don't think the company has any choice. It's a PR company in Kansas City. How often do you suppose it tries to pitch stuff to the KC Star? Weekly? Daily? Editors and reporters grow very familiar with the PR companies in town, and I suspect this company will be told to fuck off when it pitches anything to the paper. That could damn near kill the company, when the local metro is by far the biggest PR target for local companies. If they're smart they'll fire her immediately and send notes of apology to all their contacts at the paper, letting them know they've taken care of it.

    Oh, and being a single mom doesn't mean she gets to publicly fuck with other people are tarnish her company's image. If she needs the job that badly, she probably shouldn't do something like this.
     
  3. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I wouldn't say I'd wish a firing, but I can't argue with ijag either. This woman should either get a suspension or six months in the mailroom or both. How do you trust her with any company information now?
     
  4. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Not a serpent, but why shouldn't she take heat for this?
    Do people not write you if they don't like something you've done? While dealing with feedback is part of your job, in theory, she hung that guy out to dry. If she gets emails from people complaining that what she did is unethical, maybe she'll be better off for it.
     
  5. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member


    They should not, in any way.

    Some will forgive her and say the guy's tone deserved comeuppance. Wrong. She shouldn't have sent his letter out to anyone.

    The exposure she will receive throughout the KC area and elsewhere may lead others to distrust her, which is good. Even if someone hired her or she is retained people will think twice about sending her anything.
     
  6. greggdoyel

    greggdoyel Member

    Listen, I agree with lots of the emotions here. She was horrible, and if her bosses decide THEY want to discipline her, I can see it. I'm not calling her untouchable. I'm just saying that it's wrong, even cruel, for people here to post her email address, and her bosses' email addresses, in the hope that SportsJournalists.commers -- people who aren't personally vested in the situation -- generate enough outrage that she really DOES lose her job. Again, it's one thing for her to get fired. But what if this board helps make it happen? If I were one of the emailers, or one of the people who posted those email addresses, I'd feel awful. This isn't a game. Posting email addresses moves this board from "discussing" to "impacting." And it's wrong.
     
  7. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    I shouldn't be surprised by it anymore, but you hear it way too often on message boards -- "I don't like this story, and I wish the writer would get fired." It's never "I wish the writer would move on to the 99 percent of the newspaper I don't care about." My only guess is that fans are used to clamoring for a coach's dismissal or a player's benching, so taking away someone's job elsewhere is just fair game.
     
  8. billikens

    billikens Member

    It's not actually a PR company, but a publication company based in Topeka. It produces magazines such as "Mother Earth News", "Farm Collector" and "Motorcycle Classics". So I doubt this whole mess of a situation is going to have much of an effect on the company from a PR standpoint with their subscribers/advertisers.

    And while she was totally in the wrong, hopefully Hendricks does not come away from this without learning a lesson about professionalism and tact when penning a cover letter, or letter of inquiry about a job.

    In his letter he states that it's been nearly three decades since he had to look for a job, so maybe things were different back then, but taking shots at the profession and assuming you're qualified to be the boss when you've never sat on that side of the aisle really rubs most people the wrong way. Seeing that kind of approach in essentially a cover letter for a PR job pretty much reinforces the fact that he has no business in the PR industry. Although if I was the hiring manager who received that e-mail, he either would have received no response, or the canned "Thanks, but no thanks."
     
  9. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    I don't think anyone should email and ask for her to be fired. They should just email and make fun of her.
     
  10. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    PR person = totally in the wrong.

    BUT

    Hendricks could not have been more clueless on how to write a letter of interest. If I was in charge of hiring someone and the entire letter of interest boiled down to: "I have way too much experience and would be lowering myself to accept this position, but if you ask really nicely, I might be interested," I would A) resist the urge to fire off an email telling him to STFU; B) resist the urge to humiliate him publicly and C) write a polite professional email telling him we have no interest in hiring him.
     
  11. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Who cares if he's clueless?
     
  12. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Hell, Gregg, having heard about some of your responses to people, I'd have thought you'd want to track her down, find out where she lives and punch her in the face.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page