Outrage Forces Drastic HOF action by Creating Keepsakes

The following statement has been issued on the front page of the Creating Keepsakes website:

Dear Creating Keepsakes readers and scrapbookers:

We would like to thank you for your loyal dedication and continued commitment to scrapbooking and our Creating Keepsakes (CK) magazine. Without the support of our loyal readers and scrapbooking partners we would not be where we are today. In the spirit of continuing our editorial mission and fulfilling our commitment to you, we want to address the recent incident related to our Hall of Fame (HOF) contest.

We have been reading your comments and dialogue on the Creating Keepsakes message board and we internally investigated the error that has caused us all great concern: awarding Hall of Fame recognition to someone who submitted work that was not solely their own.

Our review has found the primary cause of our error. Staff changes on the CK and Hall of Fame editorial team occurred at a critical juncture in the production of the HOF book and the new team was not fully briefed on this assignment. The specific breakdown came just as the HOF book was going to press. One of our staff was called by a winner who requested a photo credit be given to another photographer for one of the winner’s photo entries. Given that the rules of the contest dictate contestants submit their own work, we should have disqualified this person’s entry accordingly. Unfortunately, our staff person did not understand the ramifications of the winner’s request and simply added the other photographer’s credit to the HOF book after the publication had already been proofed for printing.

We acknowledge and take full responsibility of our mistake and we assure you that it was not done with any bad intent. We deeply value the trust of our readers. We have read your messages and want to explain our action plan outlined below to help rectify the situation and assure you it will not happen again:

1.  We appreciate the winner’s forthrightness in notifying us that the photo credit should be given to another photographer. Unfortunately, as a matter of fairness to our other contestants, this winner has been
disqualified.

2.  As part of the contest rules, all potential winning entrants must sign an affidavit confirming that their entries are solely their own work. Although we received signed affidavits from all such entrants, we now have evidence that such a measure failed to protect us against all errors. In order to satisfy both our and our readers’ concerns that no other errors occurred during the HOF contest, we are now resubmitting this affidavit to the other 24 winners for final verification thereby underscoring its importance to the integrity of the HOF contest.

3. One week after receiving the newly signed affidavits, we will announce the 26th place ‘winner’ (Honorable Mention) and add him/her to the 2007 Hall of Fame. The winner will receive the prizes and cash award granted to the other 24 winners.

4. Upon receiving their second affidavit should other 2007 winners come forward and acknowledge that their work is not solely their own or fail to return the second affidavit, we will disqualify them and add the next-in-line Honorable Mention(s) to the 2007 Hall of Fame, providing the prizes and cash award accordingly.

5. We will print a special The Scrapbook Hall of Fame, Volume 9 supplement to honor the new winner(s) and re-acknowledge those winners. This special printing will be poly-bagged with Creating Keepsakes’ February 2008 issue, which will deliver into subscribers’ homes and onto newsstands late December 2007

6.  We will move forward with our 2008 Hall of Fame contest, but revised rules that will be published on our web site by November 1, 2007 and in the January 2008 issue of Creating Keepsakes. To avoid such errors in future contests, all relevant staff members have been appropriately informed and educated on contest rules.

Certainly this has been a challenging situation for us all. We are painfully aware that our error has deeply upset many of you, our cherished readers and scrapbooking partners. We value you and your trust that you have placed in us and we will continue to do everything we can to maintain your faith in Creating Keepsakes. We hope our response to our error is seen as a step towards maintaining your trust.

We deeply appreciate your support and hope you continue to enjoy our magazine, scrapbooking events and book products for many years to come. If you have any questions to comments, please contact Lin Sorenson at lsorenson@ckmedia.com.

With our sincerest apologies,

Dave O’Neil
Chief Executive Officer

Lin Sorenson
Editorial Director

Brian Tippetts
CK Editor-in-Chief

To summarize:

Creating Keepsakes says that the staff transition that occurred when Tracy White left affected the production of the Hall of Fame book and the staff member that Kristina Contes requested the photo credit for Nisa Fiin from was unaware of the Hall of Fame  rules and added the credit to the book after the final proofing of it.  They have disqualified Contes from the 2007 contest and are requiring all of the other winners to sign new affidavits. Anyone who does not will be disqualified. New winners will be selected from among the Honorable Mentions list and the new winners will be honored in a Hall of Fame supplement that will be packaged with the Feb. 2008 issue that is sent to subscribers. The rules for the 2008 contest are also being revised. The new rules will be made available on Nov. 1st and in the January 2008 magazine.

Something is missing from this announcement and explanation, however. Creating Keepsakes seems to have placed all of the  burden for enforcing the contest rules on the entrants themselves, relying solely on the signed affidavits to ensure that the rules were followed. This did not ensure that the rules were interpreted correctly (or not willfully ignored) by the entrants. It seems in reading this statement and their previous ones on the matter, the magazine paid more attention to enforcing whether entrants followed the guidelines on how to format their entries than on whether they followed the rules regarding the substance of their entry.

We all saw what happened to baseball when it outlawed steroids but relied on the players to "self-police" that rule. The honor system does not work when there is ignorance of the rule or an advantage to be gained.

This situation is a classic example of that. Kristina Contes wrote in her blog entry of October 16th that "When I made my pages, I was simultaneously working on Dare book stuff and didn't even think twice (or fully read) about the rules (I was WAY more worried about assembling my entry and how to show all the pages of my minibook attached to a piece of black bazzill by a ball chain)." But she also told this story in her Sept. 26th blog entry:

When I took Color one of our assignments was to pick a favorite painting and recreate it using little tiny pieces of magazine pages. I remember being really excited about the assignment, but was going to be away on the date that it was due, so I worked on it ahead of time. I bought all kinds of textured and metallic papers and cut and pasted my little heart out. When I brought it in to show my Prof before I left, she was speechless. Not because she loved it (even though she did) but b/c I did it WRONG. But it did it wrong in such a right way that I still got an A.

Was Contes ignorant of the rule, or did she believe that the rule didn't matter because her work was so good? Ultimately, it doesn't matter why she broke the rule. It was Creating Keepsakes' job to enforce those rules in their contest. Hopefully the newly revised rules will include assurances of closer examination of the entries before the winners are announced to avoid a repeat of this debacle in the future.

So now we will sit back and wait to see if the requirement of new affidavits from the other 24 winners lead to further disqualifications. If there are no other disqualifications, that will certainly become a hotly debated topic as well.

And of course, now the 50 honorable mentions are waiting to see which one of them will get the call. Good luck to all who followed the rules and congratulations in advance to the new 2007 Hall of Famer...whoever you are!