Scott Nychay is an award winning cartoonist who was let go from his paper, The Northwest Herald, last October for budgetary reasons. After he was fired, the paper ran television advertisements talking up their awards – mentioning awards that Scott had won when he was working for them. When asked about the ethics of bragging of honors gained by an employee that they unceremoniously canned, the publisher claimed that it was an older commercial that was in re-runs and it was an oversight. Now the paper has won several more awards this year – among them three awards for editorial cartoon, illustration and information graphic for work done by Scott while employed, BUT the paper entered his work LONG after they had fired him.
Scott has investigated whether he can rescind the awards, but as he didn’t submit them, he has no recourse other than to let the paper bask in its glory.
I can understand why Scott would want to rescind the awards, but I don’t think he should, even if he could. Hey, this is a business. All Scott can and should do is add the awards to his resume and make the most of the exposure he’s getting from the ads, and these stories, to leverage the best next job he can get.
He comes off smelling like a rose, and the Herald doesn’t. What could be better?