Unnamed Tabloid Scrambles To Get Cryptozoology News
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 2nd, 2009
UPDATE: All mentions and images (even though they are all over the Internet) of the previously discussed tabloid have been removed due to a harsh “cease and desist” email received from the legal department of that tabloid.
It appears that we may have a scoop on the infamous [deleted], folks.
They are in a mad scramble to corner the market on “cryptozoology news.”
In what seems like a flurry of elusive flattering emails to Cryptomundo a few days ago, and personally to me today, the tabloid just sent this my way:
“My name is [deleted], I am the Production Manager over at [deleted]
“We absolutely love Cryptomundo, you guys are the top cryptozoology news site out there!
“We would love to partner with you on syndicating some of your pieces for our website. Either news stories or just stand-alone pieces on specific cryptids would work for us. We would of course credit the site and put a link at the bottom of every post.
“They don’t even have to be super recent, but if you were interested in sending us specially-written pieces, we would love those too!
“Please let me know if you are interested, I would love to discuss this with you!”
Hey, [deleted] makes lots of money off their “news,” so I naturally, out of curiosity, asked them, “For what fee?”
Their answer: “Well, we were thinking more along the lines of sending new traffic your way.”
Yeah, right. As if I would be seriously considering any alignment with them and all they promise is “traffic.” Yikes. They must take us for real fools.
My answer was to the point: “Never mind. Not interested. Need financial reinforcement for this, as the downside would be the loss of credibility in any association with [deleted]. Thank you, anyway.”
Of course, unknown to [deleted], at the same time they were emailing me, I knew they were doing the same thing to others. For example, here’s what I heard from someone else in the online cryptozoology field, who was asking me:
“Need some unofficial offline advice. I was approached today by the production manager at [deleted]. They are interested in my cryptozoology blog…and want to do a weekly syndication [of] some of this…in exchange for a byline. I wanted your opinions on…the reputation of this organization and their work/stories…[and] whether the trade of work for byline is usual.”
So, it appears that [deleted] is on a fishing trip, and they are out to “hook” a partner in the online cryptozoology community.
Thought you, my readers, might be interested. After all, you might be next.
I’m for full disclosure, folks, of all such deals!
Do support my independence from the need to sell my work to the [deleted]; please keep this research going and save the museum…please…today
Thank you!
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Yep, she tried me too a few weeks ago. I had a gut feeling from the get go. After a few back and forth emails I never heard from her again.
They need you, not the other way around so good call.
Besides that, their satires will many times appear as spoofs depending on how they write it. That’s not a good thing certainly.
In the realm of UFOs, aliens, crypto and the paranormal, we get enough mocking from skeptics so no need to add insult to injury.
Eileen
Alien, UFO & The Paranormal Casebook
What a joke!
All they seek is to piggyback on your reputation as a committed and respected Cryptozoologist to help them save their ‘newspaper’, which is probably suffering the same lot of all the other printed Media—i.e. Extinction.
PS: If they had only thrown to the offer an autographed picture of [deleted], well… that might have sweetened the deal XD
Well, thanks for the head’s up on this… and I will keep my shower curtain pulled tight as well.. O_o
But [deleted] seems so credible!
Haha.
My aunt and uncle live in Michigan and I used to occasionally visit them during school vacations. They would have tons of these laying around. For anyone that has never flipped through one, they are actually pretty entertaining. Take a peek the next time you get stuck in line behind someone trying to pay for groceries with change.
I actually heard at one stage they had gone out of production.
Wunder what gives??????
Well, for once I think I’m glad not to be a professional cryptozoologist…
I also thought they had stopped producing…as aclockwork’ says, they are very entertaining. I purchased the issue that claimed to be their last…
Unfortunately, it’s now defunct.
Was always intentionally meant to be a satire on it’s “competition.” While they may be out of business, I still hope that somewhere, [deleted]
While this rag has little (if any) journalistic integrity, I admit that it was [deleted] that got me interested in cryptozoological “creatures” when I was a lad. I would find the “paper” at the bottom of my grandmother’s magazine rack at her home in the country. I would “hide” out in my “fort” and read the “amazing stories” late at night. Luckily, I learned the importance of proper research as I advanced in age. The stories were still great reading as a kid.
Loren, what’s that saying about a woman scorned?
Sounds like they really love us here at Cryptomundo now…
🙂
While the unnamed tabloid is dead as far as print circulation, they do have a website up with all types of “serious” crypto-news.
You all remember the Sarah “Palin bags a Bigfoot” story, right? Or the newer story about Sarah Palin being photographed for a magazine cover wearing a Bigfoot skin coat, that the unnamed tabloid says is “possibly the skin of the creature she shot last year.”
As far as I recall, [deleted] does still exist, just not in print. Everything’s online now.
If you value your career, Loren, send these morons packing!
Wow! the [auto-censored] can’t afford to pay for an article, but they can afford to pay lawyers. Most impressive 😉
Ok I am clueless (I think) as to what this {deleted} is.
Does this {deleted} have a chiroptera young human as its logo?
Ummmm… A harsh “cease and desist” email? Come on, that’s ridiculous on its face. No legal department would send a harsh cease and desist email, it would never hold up in court! It would be sent certified letter or through a service company.
Besides, what are they telling you to cease and desist from? Either they contacted you, or they didn’t. If they didn’t, then you’re lying and they have a libel/slander case against you. If they contacted you, then you’re telling the truth and reporting it. The truth is the ONLY defense against a libel/slander case.
Sounds like someone at {DELETED} didn’t like the coverage and ginned up an email to scare you off. Well, it didn’t really work. All you did was {DELETE} the name. Had they REALLY wanted to consider legal action, that would NEVER have been enough.
Silly reporters.
Of course, I have no reason to lie. What occurred is as I stated it, but I’m not going to post their email here, needless to say.
Their name and images, which were requested deleted, were removed. I stuck to the parameters of their own-titled “cease and desist” request.
The rest of my posting remains as my editorial comment on the whole affair.
I’ve since heard from two other websites that they tried to “hook” into giving content with false flattery.
Man. So you could gamble your reputation by dealing with “they who shall not be named”, drive traffic to their site with your reputation, but not be compensated for any of your work?
I simply can NOT understand why you didn’t LEAP at this opportunity! 🙂
Honestly, I don’t get the whole “work for free/byline credit” mentality that many publishers seem to have. While that works great for fanzines, the moment you are making any amount of money from content, and expecting contribution in any type of timely manner, it behooves you to compensate your contributors, even if just a little.
In my last print editorial job, with an unnamed independent college newspaper, I butted heads with my Publisher multiple times over payment for our contributors. She wanted me to solicit more free articles from kids trying to “build a résumé” or just happy to see their name in print. I wanted to make sure we could continue to receive content on a regular, timely basis by offering some (very slight) compensation to writers and photographers working on assignment (i.e. working on content we had made plans to run weeks in advance and needed to fill out our paper). Her desire for high turnover among our small group of paid writers/photographers so that she could skim free content eventually lead to my departure, and the inevitable failure of the paper as quality continued to decline.
Of course, we could have always just made up rumors about Bevo dating Bigfoot behind B** Boy’s back and probably done OK…
Rumors ?! Those were rumors ?
Should I be miffed that I was not prominent enough to have this scam tried on me? 🙂
Oh, well, they did try to snag me for that Penn & Teller show, so I suppose that’s recognition enough 🙂