Sometimes the best intentions can have the worst results. This was the case with a person paid in advance as a contributing reporter who used Facebook as a spiteful forum when he couldn't get his way. Even though this person portrayed me as a terrible person and attempted to put NSBNews.net in a negative light, I'm not going to name him because he's not important enough. But I do want to set the record straight for those who might have come across his whiny postings.
Suffice to say he was brought in as a contributing writer and generously compensated. Regardless, he didn't keep his word.
This contributing writer agreed to provide a series of stories, photos and videos of news happenings in the greater Daytona Beach area, based on his reporting experience with the print daily from the mid-1990s until a couple of years ago. He started up with us in March after agreeing on being paid $400 monthly in advance of submitting his items. He agreed that once e-mailed, the submissions were the property of NSB News LLC to be edited and posted when we decided.
At the beginning of that first month, he was paid $400 from NSB News LLC monies and I gave him an additional $250 out of my family's account so he could buy food and other personal necessities after he said he was low on cash.
In April, he received another $400 from the NSB News account, and I gave him an additional $600, again out of my own pocket, money intended for my family. The contributing writer explained he had a lapse in insurance from one entity to another and this would ensure he was covered because he has serious health issues.
Everything was going fine, except he kept writing more and more, which was great, but I could only deal with so much at one time. The first big issue was his submission on the Daytona Beach mayor's plan to bring back the LSO as a fundraiser to try and lessen the debt to Daytona State College from the American Music fiasco, which put the institution in the red.
The contributing writer's sources were rewrites from a story already published in the print daily newspaper. A new blogger, Sally Gillies, who is not paid anything, submitted a similar story, except her's actually had fresh and original quotes from those involved in the LSO. So I ran her's first.
Well, that didn't sit too well with the contributing writer. He was all worked up, dismissing Gillies simply as a "blogger" as though he was official and she was a pretender. Well, it turns out she was real deal.
The final straw from this contributing writer was a Daytona Beach "e-zone" story the print daily had on a Sunday, similar to a story he had submitted weeks earlier. Again, he was of the impression that he was a much better writer than this print newspaper reporter and that we blew an opportunity. The reality is that reporter, who covers Daytona Beach for the print newspaper, is quite good. The timing issue was not that big a deal to me.
Suffice to say, the very next day, I got an e-mail from this contributing writer saying he had resigned, four days prior to the end of April, again despite being paid in advance. And here is where the spite came in. In order to try and force me to get his stories posted on NSBNews.net, he started posting those submissions on Facebook, claiming we had no copyright because they weren't yet published. I asked him to take them down and when he refused, I appealed to Facebook and the social media outlet took them down temporarily. In order to do so permanently requires going to court, an expensive and lengthy process.
The contributing writer then started taunting me on his Facebook wall. He didn't keep his word. He just took the money and ran. After much grief, I removed his specially created byline -- that included his photo, name and a brief bio. By doing so, the byline reverted to mine, which is the automatic default for the website.
So I placed an editor's note in much smaller print in identifying who actually wrote the story: "The following was submitted by a freelancer paid in advance."
Let me be clear about this: Nobody is guaranteed a byline in journalism. There was no way his name was going to remain after he turned hios back on us.
The contributing writer then posted the revised byline stories on Facebook with the following refrain: "Henry Frederick/NSB News LLC has been replacing my byline on my previously published work with Henry Frederick's byline and pictures, in addition to publishing my previously unpublished work under Henry Frederick's byline and picture."
And this: "I wrote this story, took the photos and the videos, not the person stated in large type and with a picture. In very small type, there is a note saying a freelance writer submitted the story."
What he failed to mention was all of the hard work and time that went into editing and actually enhancing those stories and the in-house production of the videos that were far superior than what was submitted. And, of course, that he was paid and didn't keep his word.
What really irked me was when this guy was down on his luck, I helped him not only by giving him a chance to get published as a journalist, but that in less than a seven-week span, he was the beneficiary of $850 in cash that I could have provided for my immediate family.
And here is a sampling of the comments generated on his Facebook wall due to his incessant whining and pity plea. Again, keep in mind he never mentioned to his friends that he essentially received $1,650 for a dozen posted stories in less than two months:
"Hey John, that's awful how Henry has been treating you. You are a great person and a hard worker and you don't deserve this treatment. Mr Frederick should be ashamed of himself!"
"What the? How does this happen? Lack of conscience perhaps?"
"that's appalling!"
"WOW!!!!"
"What an ass. It's too bad that Henry hasn't mellowed over the years. Sorry you're not getting the credit you deserve!"
"I keep wondering what the readers on his site think, when so many stories carry his byline, but have a note saying he didn't write it. That is dishonest and unethical. Has anyone sent this to Poynter or CJR?"
"I believe the word for Henry begins with Ass and ends with hole."
The comments speak for themselves, showing a lack of class. Several others who posted comments on the former contributing writer's Facebook wall removed them once I messaged them privately on Facebook and explained what really happened. These others weren't worth my time or effort.
Keep in mind that not once did I counter punch on my own Facebook wall. This blog will be posted on my wall and that contributing writer is not being identified by name because he's not important enough and the reality is nobody cares, with the exception of his few friends, whose comments above speak volumes about their lack of class.
Not one reader of NSBNews.net has complained on his behalf, not a single one.
Our readership is growing every day and our social network on Facebook is enormous: more than 8,000 Facebook users have direct access to our postings.
The problem with Facebook is that you can block someone, but once that is done, there isn't much you can do about nastiness except to ignore it. The final solution for me was just to move on.
The dozen or so submissions by the former contributing writer have been permanently deleted from NSBNews.net, and as a result, from the Internet. Several past stories that reflected breaking news will be written from scratch and re-posted to those dates with my rightful byline.
I will continue strong daily coverage of the community as I have done for 15 years. The former "contributing writer" has returned to obscurity and irrelevance. He can take the $850 that should have gone to my family and do what Judas Iscariot did when he betrayed Jesus.