Jesus. How many articles are you guys going to write about this guy?
Seriously. Not even just stories, but using his name as points of comparison with random people in various pieces? Journalism shouldn't look like a personal vendetta. Not sure what your agenda is, but the fact that there IS one is pretty poor form.
A few comments about the article itself: It takes about 2 minutes research to find that the DDoS'ing is from B. Raisley, who is featured in your Strange Bedfellows article. On his own blog (which I'm not linking to), he says you got that story wrong. He tries to wipe out all mentions of his name on the internet, which makes sense, considering the harassment he's faced. Writers like you didn't really do the poor guy a favor. While you infer that Perverted Justice is somehow responsible, the logical thing is to wonder why they left such a story alone for months and months when it was first published and actually got attention... only to try and take it down, when, the spring, summer?
That makes no sense. Not to mention that the story has been copied elsewhere, so it's not like DDoS'ing it on the Radar site really keeps it down. Anyway, evidence of Raisley's doing:
http://3hrb.blogspot.com/2007/10/mystery-deepens.html
As for the rest of the article, it's rather shoddy to talk about averages. Most non-profits don't take in much when it comes to contributions, there are tons of non-profits out there. So, of course, their leaders don't get paid much. And if the average is less than $100,000 (what then, $90,000? $80,000? Pretty good sums!), the high end must be extraordinary. And I quickly found what the high end is:
Let's take a look at the equivalent numbers I found this morning for
NCMEC, since they're in a similar business:
In 2005: NCMEC, a "private non-profit," made $32 million from government grants (gross receipts: $47 million). That's a lot of tax dollars.
Breakdown? Their top officers make $719,000. Later in the tax document, they list the top five employees that make the most that ARE NOT directors or officers, all make more than you claim the Perverted Justice directors make... with tens of thousands of benefits on top of that.
Other salaries, including the top five non-director employees I just mentioned, total around $13.9 million. Pension plan contributions are $899,549. Other employee benefits? $1,876,497. They spend $1,829,802 on supplies, $714,000 on telephone, they spend more on postage than Perverted Justice pays its directors, $2 million on a physical office
(Perverted Justice has none), nearly a million on printing publications, $3.3 million on travel, another million to host conferences, and $9 million in miscellaneous expenses.
They received $9 million dollars from the government to run cybertipline, which is a useful service, but all they do is forward the tips to appropriate law enforcement when there are enough details to do so. That's a hell of a lot of cash just to do that. They blow a ton of cash on fundraising and management. Among other things. Documents here:
http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/Form990.pdf
Now if Perverted Justice was raking in government grants and tax dollars, I might even see where you're coming from when you criticize the ratio. They were just approved as a non-profit, which of course means they haven't taken in any charitable donations in all the time since they filed (that you discussed), and I don't see any donation links on their website. Well, looking at their site, there is a link to cafepress, but there's no one in the world that makes much money from that. But as it stands, all their money has come from a television show, a television show that surely pays Chris Hansen and others at NBC far more than it pays those who do the actual work.
The "Fightin' pedophiles and predators" business is apparently lucrative, looking at these NCMEC stats, but Perverted Justice is clearly far from the top of the heap when it comes to those who profit from it.
Your venom is misplaced, and your agenda makes for poor journalism.
Jesus. How many articles are you guys going to write about this guy?
Seriously. Not even just stories, but using his name as points of comparison with random people in various pieces? Journalism shouldn't look like a personal vendetta. Not sure what your agenda is, but the fact that there IS one is pretty poor form.
A few comments about the article itself: It takes about 2 minutes research to find that the DDoS'ing is from B. Raisley, who is featured in your Strange Bedfellows article. On his own blog (which I'm not linking to), he says you got that story wrong. He tries to wipe out all mentions of his name on the internet, which makes sense, considering the harassment he's faced. Writers like you didn't really do the poor guy a favor. While you infer that Perverted Justice is somehow responsible, the logical thing is to wonder why they left such a story alone for months and months when it was first published and actually got attention... only to try and take it down, when, the spring, summer?
That makes no sense. Not to mention that the story has been copied elsewhere, so it's not like DDoS'ing it on the Radar site really keeps it down. Anyway, evidence of Raisley's doing:
http://3hrb.blogspot.com/2007/10/mystery-deepens.html
As for the rest of the article, it's rather shoddy to talk about averages. Most non-profits don't take in much when it comes to contributions, there are tons of non-profits out there. So, of course, their leaders don't get paid much. And if the average is less than $100,000 (what then, $90,000? $80,000? Pretty good sums!), the high end must be extraordinary. And I quickly found what the high end is:
Let's take a look at the equivalent numbers I found this morning for
NCMEC, since they're in a similar business:
In 2005: NCMEC, a "private non-profit," made $32 million from government grants (gross receipts: $47 million). That's a lot of tax dollars.
Breakdown? Their top officers make $719,000. Later in the tax document, they list the top five employees that make the most that ARE NOT directors or officers, all make more than you claim the Perverted Justice directors make... with tens of thousands of benefits on top of that.
Other salaries, including the top five non-director employees I just mentioned, total around $13.9 million. Pension plan contributions are $899,549. Other employee benefits? $1,876,497. They spend $1,829,802 on supplies, $714,000 on telephone, they spend more on postage than Perverted Justice pays its directors, $2 million on a physical office
(Perverted Justice has none), nearly a million on printing publications, $3.3 million on travel, another million to host conferences, and $9 million in miscellaneous expenses.
They received $9 million dollars from the government to run cybertipline, which is a useful service, but all they do is forward the tips to appropriate law enforcement when there are enough details to do so. That's a hell of a lot of cash just to do that. They blow a ton of cash on fundraising and management. Among other things. Documents here:
http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/Form990.pdf
Now if Perverted Justice was raking in government grants and tax dollars, I might even see where you're coming from when you criticize the ratio. They were just approved as a non-profit, which of course means they haven't taken in any charitable donations in all the time since they filed (that you discussed), and I don't see any donation links on their website. Well, looking at their site, there is a link to cafepress, but there's no one in the world that makes much money from that. But as it stands, all their money has come from a television show, a television show that surely pays Chris Hansen and others at NBC far more than it pays those who do the actual work.
The "Fightin' pedophiles and predators" business is apparently lucrative, looking at these NCMEC stats, but Perverted Justice is clearly far from the top of the heap when it comes to those who profit from it.
Your venom is misplaced, and your agenda makes for poor journalism.