Earlier this week the owner of a well-known fast-food outlet in Grahamstown phoned our newsroom to alert us that a woman purporting to be a reporter had threatened to write an article criticising his establishment because the flags displayed outside were not patriotic enough for her liking.
Earlier this week the owner of a well-known fast-food outlet in Grahamstown phoned our newsroom to alert us that a woman purporting to be a reporter had threatened to write an article criticising his establishment because the flags displayed outside were not patriotic enough for her liking.
She refused to reveal her name but said she was from the town’s newspaper so although she did not mention Grocott’s Mail by name, it was inferred that she was representing this newspaper.
The restaurant owner immediately became suspicious when the self-styled reporter would not identify herself. Clearly if she were to write a story, her byline would appear at the top of the article, and everyone would know her name.
It was obvious that this young woman was invoking our proud profession to suit her personal agenda.Shame on her! Unfortunately this is not the first time that someone has claimed to be a Grocott’s reporter in order to achieve an obtuse objective.
Sometimes students, who might have spent a few days job-shadowing at this newspaper, try to intimidate shop owners with threats of publishing a damaging article.
There have also even been cases where imposters have tried to extort discounts or gifts in exchange for spiking a non-existent story.
Such actions border on extortion and/or fraud and such people damage the name of journalists in general and of this newspaper in particular.
The man who phoned Grocott’s Mail this week did the right thing – and we are grateful for that. He called the editor directly to find out if the woman was a legitimate reporter and whether she was actually on an assignment.
She was not working for this newspaper and nobody had been assigned to any such story. If you ever have reason to doubt the bona fides of a reporter who might be asking difficult questions, you have every right to ask that person to identify himself and call our newsroom to find out if that person has indeed been assigned to a particular story.
