cheating for an award

Good point. It would also help to know if you have a decent working relationship with this guy or not.

 

You could, however, ask to see the list out of "curiosity" and see whether or not he is evasive about showing you.

 

I would definitely call him out on it. It's your work, he shouldn't get the credit for it.

It reminds me of when I just started at the paper I'm at now. I happened to mention a pretty cool story idea that I discovered, and asked him if he wanted me to do it. He said, "maybe." Then, a week later, the story ran with his byline. I was pretty pissed and called him on it. He said he didn't know I wanted to do it. Nothing really came of it, but I felt better for having defended myself.

 

I like how Whitlock can just floor you from right field like that.

 

His writing was in a reporter's notebook of his that he left sitting at the computer I was using, after he had used the computer earlier in the day. It was open to the page I described above -- it caught my eye because I saw written down a headline I was particularly proud of from one of my pages that he had used as the title for that page. Honestly, for all I know, he's already entered that stuff to the contest and that notebook page is old. I really don't know -- this could be a moot point by now.

As for my working relationship with this guy -- cold, to say the least.

 

Based on that information, I'd say you take Whitlock's advice.

 

Turn to him and say, "Hey! You've got my pages there! You going to enter them in a contest? That's great! Which one is it?"

And if he blows it off, yeah, let the ME know what's up...

 

There's a lot of dumbfucks in our business, you know?

 

I agree with Slappy. Just say you happened to notice it on his desk. Bust his ass.

 

First off it's bullshit if he doesn't invite you to enter anything in the contest to begin with. I might approach him about that, say you want to enter some of the pages you have done, and not mention what you know. If he allows you to enter the pages you can find out if it was an honest mistake or if he's trying to pull one over on you.

 

I can't believe someone would cheat to win awards, accolades or acclaim.

Signed,
Barry Bonds