Maryland County Councilman Calls Out Reporter for ‘Unauthorized Use’ of His Name
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Local officials: Here’s a media relations case study of what not to do.
Here’s a good case study for local officials who might have an icy or adversarial relationship with a local reporter or media outlet that covers them. Don’t tell a reporter that they need to seek your permission to write about you.
Whatever squabble you may have will likely attract more unwanted attention.
Such is the case with a county councilmember in Maryland, who touched off a social media firestorm this weekend when he called out a local newspaper reporter in a Facebook post for her “unauthorized use” of his name in an article.
“So let me be clear............do not contact me and do not use my name or reference me in an unauthorized form in the future,” Frederick County Councilmember Kirby Delauter, pictured here in his official county photo, wrote in the Facebook post, pointing out that he’s considering legal action. “Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an Attorney,” he wrote.
The reporter, Bethany Rodgers of the Frederick News-Post, responded:
“First of all, there is no requirement to get a person's authorization in order to mention them in the paper, particularly if that person is an elected official,” Rodgers wrote in a comment below the original post. “It is not just our right but our responsibility to report on people like you, who occupy positions of trust in our government, and I make no apologies for doing that.”
The situation, not surprisingly, has gained attention well outside of Frederick County, located roughly an hour from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
"Kirby Delauter can certainly decline to comment on any story," Terry Headlee, the News-Post’s managing editor, was quoted in the newspaper’s story on the situation. "But to threaten to sue a reporter for publishing his name is so ridiculously stupid that I'm speechless. It's just a pointless, misguided attempt to intimidate and bully the press and shows an astonishing lack of understanding of the role of a public servant.”
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