Look At MEEEEEE! --- MineralMan Makes the News

[FunkyZero]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216485978

Tue Mar 15, 2022, 01:24 PM
Star Member MineralMan (142,403 posts)


DU Has a National Reach - Here's an Example:
Sometimes, what someone posts here on DU goes beyond the readership of this discussion forum. Why? Because Google includes DU in its collection of Internet data and stores everything that is posted here in its enormous database. From time to time, postings on DU get picked up by reporters and published nationally.

Last Summer, I posted here about FEMA's COVID-19 Funeral Benefit. I did that, because I had applied for and received that benefit after my parents died in January. My father died of COVID. My mother died the same day, from advanced Alzheimer's disease. I posted about my experience because the FEMA program did not get a lot of coverage and I wanted DUers to know how the program worked and what was involved in applying and qualifying for the benefit.

Last month, EarlG forwarded an email to me. It was from Kevin McCoy, a reporter for USA Today, who had found one of my DU posts about the FEMA program and wanted to contact me. Since DU's administrators never give information about DUers to anyone, that was how EarlG handled it. So, I contacted the reporter.

The reporter wanted to interview someone who had successfully navigated the process of getting that benefit. I was happy to answer his questions. The process is more complicated than it might be, so I knew it might be difficult for others to apply for and receive it. That's why I detailed the program in my DU post.

After I answered his questions and agreed that he could use my name in the article he was writing, he asked if I could send him a photo of my late parents, with me in the photo looking at their picture. I said OK and had my wife take the picture, which I sent to the reporter.

The article in USA Today can be viewed at the link below. This link has the article without the USA Today firewall:

https://news.yahoo.com/federal-funeral-benefits-covid-19-090046139.html

My reason for posting this today is to let people here know that what gets posted here on DU can sometimes find its way to others and be seen by a much wider audience. So, when you post, please keep that in mind. If you want that to happen, be sure to include likely search keywords in your post title. This is not the first time that posts here on DU have gotten national notice and it won't be the last..

[Aristotelian]

The whole post drips with contempt for the lesser beings whom he has to help out...

An interest quote from the article:

Campbell, asked to sum up the process, said: "Everybody seemed to be as efficient as any government agency can be."

Is he acknowledging that government agencies aren't the most efficient organisations on the planet? Oh my.