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Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 13 posts ] 
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 Post subject: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 7:15 am 
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Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 1:01 am
Posts: 37
Location: Batavia, NY
We've got a reporter strongly advocating a feature story about a woman "recently listed in Who's Who in American Women." That's the hook for a 20-inch story!<p>I always thought Who's Who is an ego-stroking paid listing service, but our reporter insists it isn't. I'm not having any luck with Who's Who Web site.<p>I'd prefer to spike the story. Any thoughts?


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:15 am 
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Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:01 am
Posts: 101
Location: Inner Baltimore
Good Lord, I thought "Who's Who in American Pompous Blowhards" had dropped off the face of the earth twenty years ago. That is a friggin lame excuse for a story -- unless there's some neat angle like "Local celebrity tells Who's Who to shove it."


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:59 am 
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Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 1:01 am
Posts: 122
Location: Nashua NH
You are correct: Who's Who is a borderline scam. They'll print virtually anything because then the people named will buy the stupid, overprice books. People have gotten their dogs listed, for crying out loud.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 12:48 pm 
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Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
I barely showed up for school in 10th and 11th grades and later found myself in the "Who's Who Among American High School Students." I think they were impressed by my field trips or something.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 2:37 pm 
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Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 1:01 am
Posts: 25
Spike with extreme prejudice. Better hook: Expose the sham for what it is. It's not a scam, in the strict sense: You know what you're buying, and you get what you pay for. But it's a sham because it's not what it pretends to be: Exclusive.<p>But even the sham is an old story. Try this: Extract a random sample of names from the book (or maybe those just from the local paper's area) and run them through the gamut of databases containing tax deadbeats, pedophiles and other sex offenders, felons, etc. A new enterprise is born: Who's Who in American Prisons.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 10:15 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 131
Location: Cleveland, OH
At the only paper I worked at where the subject would get coverage at all, I was told "It's a way to get another name into the newspaper." <p>I went away sputtering and moved on.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2004 8:52 am 
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Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 836
Location: New Brunswick, Canada
From a former insider on one of these: for a thankfully brief period in 1964, having been booted out of the Vancouver Times [may it rest in peace], I got a job at a yet-to-publish thing called the Business and Financial Chronicle. Job turned out to be writing bios for a Who's Who of British Columbia. [The outfit claimed this would give them a wonderful reference file when the paper got around to printing. I don't think it ever did.]
Well, did the interviews, and all that stuff, and if people bought the book we wrote them up. If they didn't, we didn't.
Left after three weeks.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2004 12:23 pm 
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Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 1324
Location: N 36° 57' 9", W 121° 24' 2"
This reminds me of those Miss Something-Or-Other scams in which teenage girls are solicited through their schools and encouraged to compete for the "crown" by getting sponsorships. Part of the package is a fill-in-the-blank press release. Other than explaining to the bereaved why we don't print "close friends" in obits, I think I dreaded most having to tell an irate mother that we weren't running her daughter's story because it's part of a scam.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2004 2:54 pm 
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Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
Speaking "close friends" in obits ...<p>I was always an advocate of including them, particularly if the deceased was unmarried. For a lot of gay people, this is the only way they feel comfortable memorializing their relationships, and it seems simply meanspirited to ignore that.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2004 12:29 am 
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Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 598
Location: The Herald in Everett, WA
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
This reminds me of those Miss Something-Or-Other scams....<hr></blockquote><p>Oh dear, now I'm going to have nightmares from my first job. Unfortunately, down South, all these ridiculous pageants can be taken quite seriously, just like these club women who insist they HAVE to get their non-news releases published in the paper for their scrapbook competitions. I'm not even going to talk about writing up 8-10 inch wedding announcements.<p>Oh yeah. THAT'S why I joined the copy desk.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2004 4:13 pm 
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Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 1324
Location: N 36° 57' 9", W 121° 24' 2"
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Matthew Grieco:
Speaking "close friends" in obits ...<p>I was always an advocate of including them, particularly if the deceased was unmarried. For a lot of gay people, this is the only way they feel comfortable memorializing their relationships, and it seems simply meanspirited to ignore that.<hr></blockquote>I agree. That's not the kind of "close friends" I meant. If that were the case, the funeral directors let me know, since they knew I'd take out friends who weren't that close.<p>I'm speaking of unpaid obits, btw.


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2004 4:51 pm 
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 744
Location: HuskerLand
This was actually at a paper, albeit a weekly. A young husband and wife had just had a child and someone from the family wrote the birth announcement for the paper, as was policy. <p>The birth announcement listed the dad's biological mother -- who had died more than 20 years earlier -- as the baby's grandmother. Grandpa had married shortly after his wife's death, and was still married, but that woman was not included anywhere in the announcement. Compromise: They included the current "mother" as the baby's grandmother and I listed the deceased mother also as the baby's "grandmother in absentia."


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 Post subject: Re: Who's Cares?
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 6:14 pm 
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Joined: Thu May 13, 2004 12:01 am
Posts: 1
Location: United States
Back to the topic people. <p>If you guys haven't known, it might be good recieving recognition from Who's Who Among American High School Students (WWWAAHSS). My first being, you can place on your resume, if you want, that you have been nominated to receive recognition through their over priced books. Secondly, WWWAAHSS will notifiy Colleges and Universities of your achievement. Finally, if u have been nominated by your math teacher to receive a United States Achievement Academy letter for the United States National Mathamatics Award, you may choose to check-off WWWAAHSS as one of their selected school activities/Awards to place on your profile.<p>So even though how meager, theirs still some benefits. Still, you don't need to buy their book.


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