Allison Stokke - our mistake
We ran a story last week about the High School pole vaulter - Allison Stokke - who, much to her annoyance, has become somewhat of an online celebrity following a video posted about her on (click here for our original story).
We said...
...she'd posted this video herself. But it has now come to our attention that she did not post this video, or in fact any of the images you can now see of her on-line.
This mistake was brought to our attention by a listener, Maria. Here's some of the email she sent us...
1. Allison did not originally post the interview on YouTube. Someone else did. Nor did she "give out" any inappropriate information about herself.
2. It's not even the interview that what started it. The trouble began when another, less reputable sports site published a picture of her idly adjusting her hair. Unlike the snoozer of a video on YouTube, that picture is pretty stunning. Someone found other pictures taken of her -- mostly innocent sporting event photos when she was underage -- and have plastered them all over the Internet, even registering a URL of her name.
So, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the way this story was presented. While I feel the subject of what you do on the Internet is important, presenting this poor girl as an example is not representative of the problem itself. She did absolutely nothing to incur the crisis she faces.
At WHYS we set the highest standards for ourselves but on occasion we get things wrong, this was one of those occasions.
We have apologised to all concerned, but if you feel misled we also extend an apology to you.
