Phil Kadner Gets It Wrong at Daily Southtown

I was interviewed by Ralph Kramden. Sort of.

Earlier this week, Phil Kadner of the Daily Southtown newspaper interviewed me about some t-shirts and other items that I am selling on my online web store at Café Press. The web address for my store is www.cafepress.com/rogersparkbench. On February 14, Phil Kadner reported it as “RogersParkBenchStore.com,” which is wrong. It's nowhere near the correct address. My blog site, www.rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/, does not have the word “store” in it, either. Come on, Phil.

This is not just a silly mistake. First, it is a very sloppy and careless mistake by someone who calls himself a reporter. Furthermore, when guys like Phil screw up information it can do harm. Answer this: How many people, upon reading Phil's column, decided to check out my online store and went to the bad address he gave? How many of them, frustrated, gave up and will never try to find my store again?

Phil interviewed me by phone and the resulting interview, while entertaining, was bizarrely inaccurate. You have to wonder about a “reporter” who can’t report accurately. Like Phil Kadner. And yes, before I continue, I admit this is personal. Nevertheless, my point is valid. Let it serve as a warning to anyone else who may be asked by Phil Kadner - or those in his line of work - to be interviewed.

I sent an email to Phil yesterday to ask him to print a correction. He had not responded by 3:30 this afternoon, so I phoned him. He answered right away and I pointed out the incorrect web address and asked him again to print a correction.

”I’ll try,” he said, dryly. He’ll “try?”

“You couldn’t just put one sentence at the bottom of your next column?”

“I have space considerations,” he said, still dry. Space considerations. Guy screws up my business address, which makes it difficult or impossible for potential customers to find my store, and he'll “try” to write a sentence correcting it if his “space considerations” can be met.

Thanks for the interview, Phil. Thanks a whole freekin' bunch.

Let’s look at Reporter Phil's story, sentence by sentence, with my whiny comments injected in italics.

'Big Nuts' Web site inspires scheme to make $1 million
PHIL KADNER

DAILY SOUTHTOWN
February 14, 2007

It was a link to a "Big Nuts" Web site that got me to thinking anyone today could parlay a single moment of brilliance into a $1 million financial bonanza.

Wait, wait, wait. I have not reaped a "$1 million financial bonanza," nor do I expect to, from my online store. But Phil Kadner's statement writes as though I may have.

Phil was inspired to do a story about my tshirts by “a link to a ‘Big Nuts’ Web site?” What kind of weird stuff is Phil surfing on the web? WHAT web site was that? My online store is not called “Big Nuts” and if you search the web for the phrase “big nuts” you don’t find my web store. At least, not right away. Now, if Phil Kadner had actually seen a link to "a Big Nuts” web site, as he claims he did, why didn’t he contact the owner of that web site?

It makes no sense. Phil described himself to me as a tech illiterate. In fact, he’d never heard of Café Press until he decided to do the story about me.

As you may recall, Cook County Commissioner William Beavers recently was quoted as bragging about his political influence by referring to himself as the hog with the largest male parts.

Well, not exactly. Beavers specifically noted the size of his testicles. He said nothing about the rest of his “male parts.”

A few days later, I received an e-mail about a Web site selling "Big Nuts" merchandise.

This is poor writing; it's confusing. Did the email note the web address of my web store? If so, how the hell did Phil Kadner – a reporter, mind you – screw up the web address to the very online store that he had chosen to do a story about?!? It would be like doing a story about Bob & Sons Hardware on Main Street but referring to it as “Hardware by Bob” on "Johnson Avenue." In a different city. And in a different state.

Coffee mugs, T-shirts, baseball caps and even a "Big Nuts" thong were available. Each item featured a photograph of a smiling Cook County President Todd Stroger next to an image of a hog.

"William Beavers and Todd Stroger, Cook County's Biggest Nuts," read the printed material on the merchandise.

Was it just a gag? Nope.

Phil asked me on the phone if this was serious. I asked him if he followed the link through to the store. He said he did. I said, well there it is. So what we have here is a reporter (!) who had never before heard of Café Press, and when he actually visited the site could not discern whether or not it was real. And in spite of having actually gone to my online store, he couldn’t get the web address right. Wow.

Tom Mannis, the founder of RogersParkBenchStore.com, an Internet shop, informed me that any and all of the items could be purchased.

Ah. Yes, the main point. There actually is a “rogersparkbenchstore.com” but it isn’t mine. It doesn’t look remotely like my blog site or like my Café Press store. So let me amend what I said earlier: This would be like writing a story about Macy’s in Chicago but referring to it as "Red Lobster of Detroit."

Does Phil Kadner check his facts? Does he care that he can do damage to people's livelihoods by what seems to him as no more than a simple misspelling or devil-may-care moment of sloppiness? Do his editors check his facts? Are they awake at the Daily Southtown? Are all of their articles written with this much careless abandon?

Mannis, formerly an executive assistant with a not-for-profit corporation and currently self-employed, told me he launched his Web site in November because he had a rooting interest in a 49th Ward aldermanic contest in Rogers Park, where he lives.

"Most of the merchandise I was selling had no markup in price," Mannis said. "I really wasn't doing it to make money. I was just making a political statement."

Then Mannis read about Beavers, the hog with the large ... well, let's just say squirrels gather these things in preparation for the winter.

Did Mannis rush out and invest thousands of dollars in T-shirts, coffee mugs and thongs on the long-shot chance that there actually might be a market for these items?

No. Thanks to cafepress.com, Mannis didn't have to buy a thing.

According to the cafepress.com Web site:

"You can create and sell a variety of customized products with zero upfront costs and zero inventory investment."

Phil Kadner actually quoted Café Press, but he couldn’t get the web address to my Cafe Press store right.

Cafepress purchases all the merchandise, about 90 different items, I am told.

“Told” by whom? Or did he read it on the Cafe Press site?

You provide the artwork, photographs or words you want on the products and download them to cafepress, which imprints your design on the mugs, T-shirts, etc., on demand.

Cafepress handles the shipping and the billing.

It provides a free online shop so you can promote the products you design.

Cafepress provides a price list of how much each item costs, and you can sell for the base price or add a profit margin for yourself.

Why does Phil Kadner, a man who has “space considerations,” break up what should be single paragraphs into numerous sentences?

Mannis admits he hasn't made much money so far, but he also hasn't been trying.

"It's just been sort of a hobby for me," Mannis said.

I noticed the "Big Nuts" thong, which originally had appeared on his Web site, was no longer available Tuesday.

"If you want one, I will send you one," Mannis said.

I declined his generous offer, but was curious about why the item had been dropped.

Had customers complained? Had the hog used his influence to censor the site?

"You are sort of thong-fixated, aren't you?" Mannis replied.

Phil Kadner, a “reporter,” did not print my answer. My answer was that I felt other items would sell better so I dropped the thong. For about five minutes Phil Kadner obsessed on the thong. I could imagine beads of sweat forming on his upper lip, a thought that haunts me still.

I just thought the oversized thong was the funniest on the site.

"If you want, I will put the thong back up," Mannis said.

I never did get an answer as to why he removed it.

But as I was talking to Mannis, I got hit with a Ralph Kramden-type moment.

Yes, Phil, me too. But I feel like I was interviewed by Ed Norton.

Kramden, of the "Honeymooners," always was trying to convince his buddy Norton to join him in some scheme that would make their fortune.

There was the plan for a miracle hair-growth tonic and another for glow-in-the-dark shoe polish.

What does this have to do with my Café Press store?

Well, it seems to me that with the presidential races heating up and fanatics using Web sites to promote their favorite candidates, someone who came up with a clever design for merchandise could hit the jackpot.

The bloggers would sell the items for you. E-mails with links to your site would be flying across the land.

"I'm an Obama Mama" coffee mugs would fly off the Internet shelves.

If you made just $1 for each item that sold to a million crazed Obamites, you could retire.

Or maybe market an anti-Obama T-shirt to the Republicans. A portrait of Obama stepping on a political land mine with the slogan, "Another wasted life," might appeal to the pro-war crowd.

Send an e-mail pitching your merchandise to Rush Limbaugh, and a single mention on his radio show could set you up for life.

All you have to do is hit at the right moment with a catchy slogan or controversial piece of art work.

Today, you're a working stiff. Tomorrow, you're the hog with the big cashews.

Remember, Kadner has "space considerations." The piece here was only 751 words, and 111 of those were devoted to quoting Cafe Press. The column's space could easily have been condensed by using proper paragraph structure.

PADS fundraiser: The people at South Suburban PADS (Pubic Action to Deliver Shelter) are holding a fundraising event at the Odyssey Country Club in Tinley Park at 6 p.m. Saturday.

What does this have to do with my online store?

To purchase tickets, visit the group's Web site at sspads.org or call Kim Wasserberg at (708) 754-4357.

Thanks again for the interview, Phil. Thanks a whole freekin' bunch. Say, by the way, would you mind printing a correction?