I admit that I have been living under a rock, and didn't hear about this story until just last night. As the
BBC puts it,
An essay that won a six-year-old girl tickets to a Hannah Montana concert has been exposed as a fake.
The essay began with the line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq".
A spokeswoman for the contest's sponsor said the girl's mother told company officials her daughter's father died in a roadside bombing in Iraq on 17 April.
The spokeswoman said Priscilla Ceballos had now admitted it was not true.
Later in the article, we learn that the sponsor disqualified her entry and awarded the prize to another entrant.
Here's the thing about essay contests. Not many people enter them. There's many reasons why, but I think these are the top three:
- Most people are pretty insecure about their writing abilities and don't feel they can produce a winning entry.
- Writing an essay is a lot of work, compared to the myriad of other sweepstakes out there where only providing your email address will gain you entry.
- Many people realize that if they win, their winning essay will be made public, and don't want the attention.
You really ought to enter essay contests when you see them. You actually do stand a good chance of winning. I've heard of essay contests where only about a dozen entries were submitted! You don't have to be a professional writer to enter, either. If these sponsoring companies wanted a professionally-written essay, they'd hire a professional to do it. They actually want essays that sound like an average American wrote it. The winning submission is usually used in magazines, radio commercials, web sites, and in other promotional materials, and your essay shows that real people use their product.
I don't think the woman in this news story really understood point #3. Contest winners, especially in high-profile giveaways like this Hannah Montana one, are sometimes featured in news stories as a way for the sponsoring company to gain a little publicity. They aren't giving away this stuff for nothing. Hannah Montana tickets definitely aren't free! I had my picture taken and published in the local newspaper when I won a year of free housekeeping services back in the late 90's. You, too, should expect to have your name and possibly your picture publicized when you win a high-profile prize. And with that publicity can come interviews.
Therefore, you should enter essay contests fully expecting them to be read aloud on the Today show. (It happened to this woman.) Don't lie, don't reveal any embarrassing tidbits about your friends or loved ones, and don't do anything else you wouldn't want to have associated with your name. Remember, the Internet is forever. When I google my name, I can still find essay contest entries I submitted in web-based contests going back to 2001! Fortunately, if I ever apply for a new job, there's nothing in those entries that I think a Human Resources employee might find and want to disqualify me from hiring. I hope such a thing never happens to the mother in this story.
I end this post with a challenge to all the news organizations that have published articles on this story. All of them mention the mother's name. A few of them also mention the 6-year-old daughter's name. As I just pointed out, the Internet is forever. Would you consider removing the name of the daughter from your articles? Usually minors are not mentioned by name in stories like these. We wouldn't want the actions of her mother to haunt her as she grows up.
