The Saga Continues

Well, I am yet to hear back from Mr. Osman concerning the last email I'd sent. Because I'm not too big on keeping my mouth shut or being patient I decided to write him again.

Mr. Osman, I had written you last week about a concern I had with the credibility of a person you had interviewed as part of the follow-up for the CBS 3 I-Team investigation into local Army recruiters.

As I'd said in my original email Mr. Chris Dugan is not a "former recruiter" as is stated in your report. In my response to your email I provided you an interview Mr. Dugan had given where he is called a "recruiter assistant". I also clarified that a "recruiter assistant" is a very temporary assignment with a very limited scope. "Recruiter assistants" are low-ranking service members who are given temporary duties which are limited in scope. The primary recruiting task given to a "recruiter assistant" is lead generation. They do not interview leads or prospects, and are not responsible for the processing of applicants. A "recruiter applicant" is as qualified to discuss life inside recruiting as a newly arrived intern is to discuss life in a network news room.

Mr. Dugan has made a name for himself in the anti-war and anti-recruiting movements by billing himself as a "former recruiter" who "was privy to what goes on - on the inside ", however he is no such thing. Your description of him in your follow-up, which has now been re posted on sites like Michael Moore's, does a disservice to your viewers and readers. I find it disturbing that a network news reporter, doing a story for a network news investigatory team, would not have done a more thorough job of gathering background on someone who is being interviewed for a story.

There is no shortage of current and former military recruiters who can give an interview about what it is like to be in recruiting. A phone call to a local Reserve or National Guard facility would probably put you in contact with a half dozen people who had experience in recruiting. Why the only source you could find for this commentary is a fraud is simply beyond me.

I appreciate your time and look forward to your response.

I'm really intent on tilting this windmill. I'm not going to stand idly by while some HRAP goes on TV and tells the fifth largest city in America that I'm a "salesman" and I have a "quota".

I'm pretty well convinced that Mr. Osman had a story in mind, and that Chris Dugan's misrepresentation fit too perfectly into the story to not be included (Maybe Holly can tell me whether that is gatekeeping). I don't know if this is going to result in anything more than me simply being more pissed off about things which I can't do anything about, but it'll give me a couple of blog posts.

*UPDATE*

Had to redo the post because of a formatting error I made worse when trying to fix. I'll redo the links when I get the chance. Sorry.