When I read the article about the fire at our plant in the Augusta paper this morning, I noticed that the reporter got our Human Resource Manager’s name wrong. He was quoted as Dave Gustafson, not Mark. Upon arrival at work I made a beeline for his office to introduce myself to the new HR Manager, Dave. Mark took my kidding in good graces and said, “Let me tell you a story.”
That reporter was being a real pain; I spent most of my time riding herd on him. Even after a polite request to him that I was the point of contact and if he wanted any information to come to me, I still had to break up him talking to employees several times. We had one female employee of the department the fire was in that was overcome by smoke and was being treated by paramedics on the scene. Her husband had shown up, and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pickup while she received oxygen. The reporter had taken a couple of pictures, and the husband told me about it and asked if he would tell the reporter not to print the photos. When I asked the reporter to not run the pictures, our fourth estate friend said something to the effect of freedom of the press and that he was allowed to be there and take and use whatever pictures he wanted. I agreed that what he said was true, but only if he did so from across the street, but he was on our private property and as such subject to our whims. That reporter was not there to cover the news; he was there to find a story.
Not knowing whose legal ground was firmer, I guess the reporter decided that he wouldn’t run any of those pictures. Seeing as most people love to see their name in the paper, maybe he thought that he could punish Mark by printing his name as Dave. But Mark is only to happy to be Dave as long as those unflattering pictures of one of his employees don’t get published.