cheating for an award

I don't agree with this.
If you don't stick up for yourself, no one else will.

And, I wouldn't be taking Whitlock advice here.
Ask him why he didn't stick out his ESPN gig?
It's one side of the fence, or the other. If you sit on it, you get a picket in the ass.

 

There is one thing about sticking up for yourself when it matters and another when you have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Bite your tongue and vow to never, ever be like that guy.

 

Had Whitlock bit his tongue, he'd still be at espn right now. Whitlock argued because of the principle behind the matter. That's what I'd be arguing for here, principle. I'd have to say something to clear my conscious.

 

Are you sure he entered the portfolio only under his name. Possibly listing his name or just listing staff?

 

My point, exactly.

 

Well, I finally saw my SE again (one of the many reasons I don't like him is that he rarely works, but still gets paid for 40 hours, but that's a complaint for another day), and that reporter's notebook is still laying out, open to that same page. So I said to him that I saw the pages listed and that I think two of them are mine. He said he did them. I said no, because you've got two bylines in that one. He said he thought he did that page in advance. I said there's no way, because the centerpiece is of the event you covered with a photo of that event. He said he must have been mistaken and apologized, but that the entries were mailed a while back so there's nothing we can do now. But he never heard anything back, so they probably didn't win anything anyway.

Of course, if they did win, I'd never know. It's not like he'd come brag to me about it. So really, there's nothing more I can do at this point. I know he wasn't merely mistaken about the one page though -- there's no way, not with his mugshot atop the page for a column he wrote about that deadline event, nor with the game story of it with his byline. The second page maybe... very unlikely, but not altogether impossible like the first page.

Anyway, there's my update.

 

If he gives you a lot of hassle, remember it's not legal. Any court would see the cause-effect relationship there and you'd win a tidy sum. Document this meeting in writing, and keep it for your files.

 

He won't say anything else about it. Might even be a little nicer to you for a little while. Meanwhile check the contest webpage and nail him on it if he does win. Then you'll be sports editor.