Lesson Learned

I received an email a few days ago from someone that offered me money to post something on my blog that wasn’t completely related to its theme.  I initially answered that I wasn’t interested and referred the writer to an article written by another Dodger Blogger on the theme he requested.

He answered me back and said that the article I mentioned to him from another blog was essentially ghost written by him and that if I did the same, he’d compensate me.  I thought, “well that article wasn’t too far off the baseball theme.”  I told him to send me what he’s got, thinking that maybe somehow I could write a Dodger related blog around what he sent.  “Sure, I might be interested,” I said.  The allure of finally getting some compensation for all the work on this blog was a temptation that I couldn't pass up.

That was a BIG MISTAKE.  This man sent me a generic article about baseball and poker and asked me to post it as my own.  It wasn’t near the standards of what I usually put on the site.  So I spent several hours tailoring a piece around his posting, (he wrote about 4 paragraphs).  It wasn’t easy, but I did some research and wrote a Dodger baseball related piece around his quotes.  I quoted him and was careful to I follow journalistic standards and attributed all quotes to original authors and cited a piece that I found on the internet with the accompanying quotes. 

I was actually quite proud of what I accomplished.  Thought it was a fair piece considering what I had to work with.

So what happened?  He didn’t approve.  He sends me an email and tells me to submit his original piece and not mention him.  He wanted me to submit it as my own.

My response to his email follows:

Dear xxxxxxx,

No offense, but I prefer it the way it is.  What you provided me didn't quite fit into my blog’s parameters and it was a stretch putting something together that matched the Dodger baseball related theme of my blog.  I'm not comfortable posting an article written by someone else as my own.  I know my site is just a blog, but I do have high standards of integrity when it comes to what is posted on my site and it would be misleading and dishonest to the hundreds of readers if I did otherwise.

I spent about 3 hours this evening laboring on a piece that didn't really fit into my site.  Not only was I able to produce a piece that fit into the blog's theme with the Hershiser angle, but integrating your post seemed to fit in well.

Your entire article was in the body of my piece.  If you want it removed.  I will do so immediately.

I didn’t wait.  It is 1:40 am and I need to get up for work tomorrow morning at 6:00 am.  What a wasted evening...I deserved it though, I got greedy and tried to get a little compensation for a piece.  Never again.