It's been a very interesting last few days here on my hill overlooking Cox's Creek, but not in connection with my Amateur Radio or CW key collecting hobbies.
My virtual newspaper web site has gotten a lot of attention — media attention — due to a story I broke regarding the purchase of a local distillery by the nation's largest family-owned distilled spirits company (also a local company).
Rumors of a sale have been the buzz around town for some time. Every media outlet heard about it, but none reported it. On Wednesday I got a heads-up that several days earlier, “company men” (the non-union white collar employees) had informed the workers the distillery was being purchased by the other company.
With solid confirmation, I immediately wrote and published a story on the web site, including background on why the buyer might want an operating distillery (their distillery operation was destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1996). The company purchased a state-of-the-art distillery in 1999 in West Louisville, and this has been where their bourbon has been produced, hauling it here for bottling and aging.
Thursday morning I decided to check with the news director of our local cable tv channel to see what — if anything — he might have heard. He too had heard the rumors, but was not aware that employees had been told of the impending sale. I was going to e-mail the company's director of communications, but he told me he would call him and then get back with me on his comments. At minimum we knew we were going to get either “no comment” or a flat denial.
Evidently, the wheels of corporate communications had been turning at both companies since earlier that morning. I soon received a call from the local company spokesman who — before denying the story — wanted to know where the information came from. I told him what I published, and that my source had been company employees at the distillery being purchased. He denied the company had purchased any assets from the other company, and asked me to publish that on the site. I agreed.
While writing that, I received a rather testy e-mail from the communications director of the New York-based parent company of the local distillery denying any sale, complaining that the story was published without first contacting his office, demanding the original story be taken down, and that I publish his company's denial. I wrote back that I was working on the other company's statement and I would add his comments to the story.
About 20 minutes later he called me on the phone to complain, among other things, that I hadn't changed anything on the site (The irony wasn't lost on me that here was the vice-president of corporate communications of the world's largest wine company — with sales of $5.2 billion — bitching to a fat guy in his underwear about a story on his web site.)
I assured him the site had been updated to include denials from both companies. He wasn't convinced, telling me that his browser showed the original story. Evidently his company has some sort of proxy server that caches web pages. I had done all I could do; how to get the the corporate servers to reload the new page was outside my knowledge base. Like it or not, he had to trust that a fat guy in his underwear was telling him the truth.
While in town that afternoon I was flagged down by an acquaintance who told me I was the topic of a news story on the cable channel's text system. While the news director couldn't run a story on the rumors of the sale prior to this, he now had a story with an angle — the company's vehement denial of my story.
Initially I felt that a media comrade had thrown me under the editorial bus. But the truth is that my published story enabled both the cable channel (and later the newspaper) to publish stories about the sale rumors. For all three media outlets (myself, cable and newspaper) we were sitting on a story we each wanted to run.
For most of Thursday and I think part of Friday morning, my site and I were in heavy rotation on the cable TV scrolling news. My site and I were featured just below the fold on the front page of the Friday, Nov. 7th edition of our local newspaper.
On the cable channel, they used my name and a partial reference to the web site name; in the newspaper, they used the site name but referred to me only as “a local man.” Fortunately for viewers/readers, if they're looking for my site they can Google the identifiers from either account and my web site pops up at the top of the search results.
The real question remains: Is there a sale in the works? Clues to the answer might be found in the denials from both companies. Each stated that no sale had taken place; they did not address if there was a sale in the works. From the level of rumor activity — plus the fact employees at one site were informed of the sale — clearly there's some sort of deal in the works. Time will tell.
The rumors of the family-owned company buying a local distillery aren't new, either. A bourbon fan site has been discussing rumors the company was considering buying a small family-owned distillery site that is located just up the hill from the company's original distillery that was destroyed by fire.
POLITICS IS AN UGLY BUSINESS. Friday afternoon as I was leaving the bank (and believing my web site and I were settling back into editorial obscurity) my cell phone rang.
The call was from one of the Grand Poobahs of a local political party who had a question regarding the election results I had helped broadcast from the local radio station on election night. Somewhere along the way, some numbers dropped off some totals, and our on-the-fly numbers didn't exactly match the final totals at the county clerk's office. The discrepancies were not huge, and didn't affect any outcomes. I told Poobah I would look into it.
I was then thanked for all the help I had given in the Poobah's fundraising efforts by the content published on my web site. I wasn't sure what was being referred to; in my mind I'm asking myself “What the hell did I publish that helped the party raise money?”
The GP repeated it a couple of times, confusing me further. What I apparently missed was the attempt at sarcasm; the Poobah went on to bitterly complain that the campaign donor lists I had published Nov. 1st were doing him a real disservice. The opinion was that it was shooing away potential donors who didn't want the publicity. It was implied I was aiding and abetting “the enemy.”
The reason I assembled the lists was simple: No other local media had the time or inclination to assemble a list of the county's donors. The information was all public record. The lists were as complete as I could make them, though I suspect donations were made that didn't show up in my searches.
Poobah strongly urged me to pull the information from the site, and that my “Who's In Their Wallets?” logo was an insult. I pulled that logo out from my reporting on campaign contributions in the Democratic primary county races in 2006. Over the top? Perhaps.
The lists were very interesting, and due to time constraints I was unable to really pull out interesting tidbits and report on them. For example, my Catholic parish priest made donation to presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Barack Obama — both candidates who support abortion on demand.
Poobah finished his rant; I said I understand the views expressed. I suspect that when the final campaign donation reports from the general election are available — and I report on them — I'll probably earn another testy audience with the Grand Poobah.
It's a dirty job, but someone needs to do it.
In the words of G. Gordon Liddy, “The press is like the peculiar uncle you keep in the attic – just one of those unfortunate things.”