When blogger Monica Gaudio posted an entry to her blog about Cook's Source Magazine stealing an article from her, running it in their magazine with a byline but without compensation or notification, and the subsequent snarky e-mail penned by Cook's Source editor Judith Griggs, she likely thought she was venting to her limited circle of Livejournal subscribers and would then move on. What happened instead was a firestorm that provides a very important lesson for business, that in this age of viral media, the traditional tendencies of "Big Business" to disregard "Small Business" as irrelevent no longer apply.
For those who haven't heard the story, it has all of the hallmarks of a good story in any media. It contains a traditional underdog with a self-deprecating style, a cartoonishly sinister big business villain, and the most ridiculously inaccurate pronouncements since "the internet is made of tubes." If Judith Griggs didn't show that she has no understanding of the web with her insistence that "the web is considered public domain" and her assumption that a web writer would be so happy to have a print byline and edit that "you should compensate me!", she certainly did by not seeing that this is a "recipe" ripe to become a viral hit.
Soon enough, the web writing community began to post the story on social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. Cook's Source Magazine's Facebook page was inundated with comments ranging from chastisement, to funny commentary, to downright threats. It all culminated in Cook's Source's page either being "hacked" or "taken down to staunch the bleeding" depending on whose story you believe.
But the pain is far from over for Judith Griggs or Cook's Source Magazine. As the old adage says, "there's always a bigger fish" and Cook's Source's attempts to eat the little fish has now been picked up by the great white sharks of the media, including the LA Times and NPR. Investigation of other Cook's Source Magazine materials showed that numerous articles, recipes, and even pictures had been pilfered, both from small-time writers and big sources like NPR.
In this time, more than all others, there is no "small fry" in the business world. An unhappy contributor or a dissatisfied customer used to be a nuisance. Now every slight has the potential to derail an entire business. The watchword for business today is an old one, old enough to be called The Golden Rule in fact. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Cook's Source and Judith Griggs very likely wish they had heeded that old rule right about now.
Comments
My friends in the food writing community are all a-buzz about this. A list of the magazine' advertisers is circulating, and a lot of people are contacting them --which should really hit Cooks Source where it hurts.
Just to clarify, Griggs' comment about the original author compensating Cooks Source was in reference to the time spent in "editing" the original piece, not for publishing it. The "editing," according to at least one source, consisted of correcting the spelling of a number of words from various 16th Century articles cited in the article.
This does not, of course, validate editor Griggs' condescension.
Hello,
To restore balance to the world, I make you this offer. If you allow me to edit this article, I will pay you for the privilege.
I will give you $5 to change the headline to "Cook's Source Magazine scandal: David slays Goliath". See, David doesn't want to turn into Goliath because Goliath *loses*. David already beats Goliath in the original story. David is also a clever guy; suppose Poseidon had outbid Yahweh's slingshot and offered David shapeshifting powers. David would presumably choose to transform into something that could *defeat* Goliath, not just turn it into an even fight. Bonus: now that he owes a different deity his eternal worship, the Jews become a Poseidon-worshipping desert tribe, which is an appealing bizarre juxtaposition.
I will throw in another $2.50 if you change "great white whales" to "great white sharks." There are several problems with the phrase as stands, ranging from the literary (the great white whale traditionally represents a great many things, but "there's always a bigger fish" is not among them) to the taxonomic (it's not a fish) to the zoological (while a sperm whale could probably eat a big fish if it wanted to, its preferred diet is squid seasoned with bits of Ahab). Changing it to a great white shark (probably your original plan, until you decided, in an impulsive fit, to go bigger) would resolve all of these concerns.
With the metaphor issues resolved, I'm mostly sated, but I will tip you an extra fifty cents if you write "irrelevant" instead of "irrelavent", the latter being merely my second-favorite spelling.
Regards,
A random dude goofing around late at night.
Aaron,
I appreciate your kind offer at editing and have taken some of your advice (the spelling and the sharks). However, I am having trouble with your request to provide monetary compensation as having your comments on my site makes it suitable for my portfolio. I should be paying you!
Elizabeth, at this point all of the advertisers have been informed. Many of them have already publicly repudiated Cooks Source and canceled further advertising with the magazine, and have been asking the Internet to ease up with the emails and phone calls because they were as swindled as anybody else in this mess.
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