Who's the Liar?
For those of you who ducked out a little early on Friday, you may have missed the president of Locks of Love, one of America's best-known charities, using this blog to accuse the New York Times of maliciously slandering them. It started when the Times wrote a story last week claiming Locks of Love was being dishonest in their operations. From there. I wrote a piece for this blog, and then Locks of Love contacted me in an effort to set the story straight. I agreed to post the Locks of Love response. And we now have a classic case of "he said/she said," only the "he" is one of America's most-respected newspapers and the "she" is one of America's most-respected charities. And one of them, to be frank, is a liar.
(UPDATE: The NY Times editor of this story responds to Ms. Coffman's accusations in the comments below.)
- The New York Times says that, according to Locks of Love themselves, "80% of the hair donated to Locks of Love is unusable" and thus thrown out. Locks of Love president Madonna Coffman says she has no idea where the Times got that number. According to her, "the only hair that is ever thrown out is hair that has been swept off the floor or has become moldy from being packaged wet over a long period of time, prior to receipt."
- While Locks of Love states that they exist to provide wigs for people who suffer from alopecia areata, a non-fatal disease that causes hair loss, they believe that the Times tried to make them look worse by subtly claiming that they are there to serve "gravely ill women and children."
- The New York Times says their story is, as always, "all the news that's fit to print." Locks of Love says that the reporter in question, Elizabeth Hayt, acknowledged to them that her editors asked her to dig up "negative information." When she was unable to find any such information, Locks of Love says she resorted to "inaccurate quotations," "created quotes," and made up "conversations that did not occur." In a telephone discussion with Ms. Coffman of Locks of Love on Friday, she told me that the reporter from the Times had called her in tears, apologizing for what the Times editors had done to her story and the reputation of Locks and Love.
(UPDATE: The NY Times editor of this story responds to Ms. Coffman's accusations in the comments below.)
Labels: charity news, hair donation, liars, Locks of Love, New York Times, slander
posted by Trent Stamp at 8:24 AM
23 Comments:
I've read both the NYT article and the Locks of Love response, and I don't think either one of them is lying. The NYT just put a bit of a negative spin on the facts, and Locks of Love is upset.
Both the NYT and LOL say that much of the hair donations received is unusable and needs to be thrown out. This makes sense to me, hair is a perishable item if it is not taken care of properly. The NYT puts this number at 80%, and LOL does not dispute this number in their response.
As far as selling the extra hair to commercial wig makers, this makes sense, also. It takes money and effort to turn raw hair into wigs, and if a charity gets more hair than they can handle, it is much better to sell it than throw it away. They are only throwing away unusable hair, which unfortunately is 80% of donations, because donors are not educated about what is usable and what is not.
R.W. McQuarters donated his dreadlocks, but LOL's website clearly says that dreadlocks are unusable. Too bad he didn't know before he sent it in, but maybe he should have asked before cutting them off.
I think the NYT article is a good one, and a careful reading tells me that LOL isn't really doing anything wrong except maybe they need to do a much better job educating their donors.
No offense, ben, but one of them is lying, without a doubt. forget the hair stuff. as trent says, the locks of love president says the NYT wanted to hurt them so bad they went so far as make "inaccurate quotations," "create quotes," and make up "conversations that did not occur."
no idea who is telling the truth, but if locks of love says they never said the things the NYT claims they did, one of these suckers is a liar.
[Human Assistant at the keyboard]:
One way to approach it is to ask which one has been caught in information scandals previously.
Try searching the net for "Jayson Blair," for example, and "Rick Bragg."
-- Ed
I don't know. I'm not the biggest fan of the Times, but doesn't this seem like a strange group for them to be picking on? What's in it for them?
These are bold words from Ms. Coffman, but her problem is obviously with the times, not you. And yet, I haven't seen a single letter in the Times from her or any of her staff demanding a retraction. Hmm...
Todd, I'll grant you that LOL is accusing the NYT of lying, but they never say exactly what about.
NYT states a few "facts": that 80% of the hair is unusable and is thrown out, that some usable hair is sold, and that they get more donations than they can handle. LOL does not dispute this in their response.
LOL says that the only hair that is thrown out is hair that is unusable. The NYT article does say exactly that as well.
I think we are just splitting hairs. (heh, heh)
Has anyone contacted the reporter from the Times -- Elizabeth Hayt -- and gotten her side of the story? So far you've gotten the story from Madonna Coffman; but that's only one side of it.
How does Ms. Hayt respond to Ms. Coffman's allegations that Ms. Hayt resorted to "inaccurate quotations," "created quotes," and made up "conversations that did not occur?" Those are pretty serious allegations. Serious enough for a libel suit.
And did Ms. Hayt really call Ms. Coffman in tears and apologize? What's Ms. Hayt's version of events?
Let's get Ms. Hayt's side of the story before we rush to judgement on this one.
The real liars are the gullible public who have allowed the word to spread that if you donate your hair to Locks of Love, it will be made into a wig for a child who lost her hair due to chemotherapy for cancer. That is what most people believe. Even though the charity's website is careful not to tell an untruth about how much hair gets donated, sold, and discarded, they are careful not to tell the whole truth either. They have carefully tweaked the content of their web site several times to delete any content that points to holes in their worthiness. Locks of Love is especially guilty of allowing major publicity events such as Oprah, Maury, and Ann Curry have shown on TV which stir up the sympathy of people who think, oh, how unselfish, how sweet. They allow people to be in love with their charity for inaccurate reasons. Face it, most people think all the hair is made into wigs, and it helps kids with cancer. And after seeing these TV events, or reading about them in newspapers, lots of folks go out and inform long haired friends, relatives, acquaintances, and yes, strangers, that they should give hair to this charity. Many figure, who cares, it's just hair. Is it just hair to those women who have 3, 4, 5 foot hair or more, who are shamed into chopping it off on national TV? How many of those women believe it's going to wind up on the head of an ill child? I'd guess nearly all. How many children innocently get sheared and believe it's going to wind up on the head of an ill child? I'd guess nearly all. How often does Locks of Love go on TV and give viewers ALL the facts about how few wigs they make and how much hair is donated and how little is used? I'd guess, nearly never.
Well, Locks of Love hasn't contested two things in the article. That they've made/given around 2000 wigs since they were founded, and that they get up to 2000 donations a week.
2000 donations a week is 104,000 donations a year. if they needed, say, ten donations to make a wig, that should be hair enough for 10,400 wigs a year.
Even if "up to 2000 donations a week" averages out to 1000 donations a week over a year, that's 52,000 donations a year, and hair enough for 5,200 wigs.
Whatever is going on with the hair, the vast majority can't be being used to make wigs for Locks of Love's charitable purposes.
Even if all 2000 wigs Locks of Love has provided have been given within the past year, that's a lot of hair not going into their wigs. And those 2000 wigs have been given over ten years, not one.
If most of the hair is being sold and the money given to medical research, that's better than hair being thrown out.
The publicity for Locks of Love, including its website, promotes the organization as making wigs from donated hair, not as selling donated hair to support research, which seems to be the fate of the majority of the hair coming in, if it isn't thrown out. It's a matter of a charity being open in its mission and its activities.
It's as if food given to a food bank was being resold rather than given to the hungry. No matter how the money was used, the donation is not being used as promised.
Here is a current page from LOL's website
http://locksoflove.org/press.html
"The organization, which began operation 1998, has helped over 2,000 children to date. Thousands of bundles of donated hair arrive as a result of the internet and word of mouth as well as publicity Locks of Love receives in newspapers, magazines and on television programs."
The gist of the arguement against LOL is that they are receiving that much hair yet have only made that many wigs.
Using their numbers.
2000 children received wigs.
Another page on their site
http://locksoflove.org/faq.html#Aa21
says that one child might receive as many as 8 wigs over time. So if we do the math 2000 x 8 = 16,000 wigs might have been made.
In the quote above they say they get thousands of bundles of hair.
On this site if you register you can see a report from 2006
http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?partner=guidestar&npoId=579069
It says they get 2000 tails per week.
It takes 6-10 tails to make a wig.
http://locksoflove.org/faq.html#Aa14
Lets be fair and say they used 10 for every wig.
2000 tails / 10 = 200 wigs possible per week's donations.
200 x 52 weeks in a year = enough hair to make 10,400 wigs.
In 10 years they have made 2000 - 16,000 (if they all got 8 wigs).
10 years x 10,400 wigs = 104,000 wigs possible if all the donated hair was good hair. That's 15.3 %
If they want to argue about who is giving the proper numbers then they should give the real numbers.
Numbers they should give
1. How many requests for wigs have they've received.
2. How many requests were given free wigs.
3. How many were given wigs that were not free.
4. How much hair have they actually received.
5. How much hair was sold or given to some other entity.
6. How much hair was thrown out for being unsuitable.
If LOL is having trouble with receiving unsuitable hair or improperly mailed hair then they should suspend receiving hair from donors who are not following procedure and educate the public and salons or require them to sign up to participate in advance and have them acknowledge that they have read the real procedures. Or do something to get the word out about how to cut & send properly.
Wow, looking at the numbers quoted in the comments above, it looks like the NYT underestimated the amount of hair thrown out...or at least not used in wigs. I think LOL, like most organizations not used to receiving non-positive attention, is going into hypervenilation mode.
Here's one point I hope is worth making:
If someone said to me, "Cut off your hair so a needy child won't go bald," I would be inclined to donate.
If someone said to me, "Cut off your hair so we can sell it to a wig-company to raise money for alopecia research," I'd ask them if I couldn't write them a check instead.
I think it's safe to assume many people wouldn't mind giving up hair for needy children, but they would mind giving it up to be sold to raise money. Why not just donate some money and keep your hair?
For what it's worth ...
To quote the above commentor:
If someone said to me, "Cut off your hair so a needy child won't go bald," I would be inclined to donate.
Something I take issue with is how acceptable it is, these days, to approach a person with long her and urge him or her to cut it off and donate it. Even if Locks of Love were upfront about its practises -- which it clearly is not -- it's still rude and ungracious to tell someone what charitable activities he or she should persue.
As the editor who oversaw publication of The Times article, I would like to respond to the issues raised by Trent Stamp and Madonna Coffman.
First, at no time did an editor ask Elizabeth Hayt, the reporter, to find “negative” information about Locks of Love, as Ms. Coffman writes, and at no time did the reporter “acknowledge” to her sources any frustration in failing to do so. According to Mr. Stamp, Ms. Coffman told him by telephone that “the reporter from the Times had called her in tears, apologizing for what the Times editors had done to her story…’’ This comes as news to Ms. Hayt, and to her editors. She did not break into tears in either of the two telephone interviews she had with Ms. Coffman, and she had no reason to “apologize” for how the story turned own.
The gist of Ms. Coffman’s displeasure seems to be the reporting about what becomes of hair donated to Locks of Love. The Times wrote, “As much as 80 percent of the hair donated to Locks of Love…is unusable for its wigs, the group says.’’ (The article did not state, as Mr. Stamp writes, that 80 percent of the hair is “thrown out.’’) The piece noted that some hair is thrown away, some hair is sold to raise money for the charity, and some hair is sent to a wigmaker, who in turn rejects up to half that portion.
Although Ms. Coffman accuses The Times of making a “grossly false interpretation’’ of the fact a majority of the donated hair is not made into wigs for alopecia or cancer suffers, this is what she told Ms. Hayt. According to the reporter’s notes, Ms. Coffman said, “The majority of the hair we receive — 60 percent, maybe as high as 80 percent — is unusable for our wigs.’’
In subsequent e-mails to a spokeswoman for Locks of Love, Ms. Hayt asked for more details about the 80 percent figure. At no time did the spokeswoman, or Ms. Coffman, deny that figure.
Trip Gabriel
Style Editor
The New York Times
Mrs Coffman uses very harsh words towards the NYT in her reply, and I don't think that this is an appropriate way of answering to this, as I see it, critical, but in no way insulting article.
The article brought up some serious questions about this organization, and Mrs. Coffman simply failed to answer them in her reply:
* Is it indeed true that 80 per cent (according to the numbers an above poster has drawn from the Locks of Love Web site it seems to be an even higher percentage) of the donations are not directly used for wigs for ill children?
* If so, then
* why is this the case?
* how can this enormously high
percentage be explained?
* why does Locks of Love not
communicate this important
information to potential
and actual donors?
I think many people would like to know - and especially the donors deserve an exhaustive answer to this from Mrs. Coffman, which is not yet given.
From the information collected here up to now, the reader must clearly conclude that Locks of Love not only misinforms their donors and the public with respect to the use of the donations, but also falsely reproduces the content of her contacts to the New York Times.
Thank you, Mr. Stamp, for bringing this interesting topic up and discussing it on your site. Please do stay on it.
It's not just that women with long hair are being told what charities to support. They are being told that they are selfish to keep their long hair by hypocrites who have no intention of donating anything to charity. I've been told more than once that there's a child with cancer with no wig because I have long hair and intend to keep it.
It's not just women with long hair who are pressured to cut their hair and give it LOL so that "children with cancer can have wigs". I have been in elementary school classrooms where every girl had a "chop" hairstyle. It turns out the teachers arranged for all the girls to cut their hair to donate to LOL because "they give wigs to girls with cancer". Was any of the hair used? Probably not. Most would have been too short or thin or in bad condition.
If you tell people about what LOL actually does, they often say something like, "It's the thought that counts." No, it's not the thought that counts.
Ann Curry is complicit in this fraud as well. I know personally that I and hundreds others wrote to NBC, warning them about this spurious group. Hundreds of others on the Today Show were treated like cattle and allowed to be duped b/c of Ann Curry and the NBC staff. I have zero respect for Ann today. Bob
In 2003 I made the choice of searching out locations claiming to be involved with LOL. After my hair was cut, I was told the price to pay...normal price at that.
I've checked their site over the years, and have never been impressed with the program. While they may be 'in it' for the right reasons, they're mismanaged. They're leading people to believe their system is one to trust in terms of donations being fairly received and distributed.
Just from my experience and what I'm reading here on Trent's blog of LOL's rebuttals and statements...my concerns as a donor are realistic.
While it's great to have 'mass cuttings' in communities and cities, people have to ask themselves if LOL is equipped to handle and process the bulk of these donations.
They may have been great regionally when they started, but when you take a brand nationally you need to treat it like any other business...unless the CEO's getting a six figure salary that's protected.
By the way, as a consumer I'll personally shoot any rebuttal LOL makes to my remark here. They need to shut up, listen to consumers and donors, drop their ego, and make it better with everything on the table for people to see in the light of day.
One small mistake in Purple Bubba's math. It's 1.53% usage (!!), not 15.3%, and even the 1.53 is charitable, as the 2000 tail per week figure is probably a low-ball estimate from LoL itself in 2002. They reap far more donations today, including my SIL's pointless, sorrowful donation from two months ago. I wish I knew in time! Bob
Locks of Love sucks now that I read the article. Pantene which just started already got 2K wigs and all LOL in 10 years was 2k?
Something is wrong. I donated 12" to them about 2-3 years ago and I was just about to send them another 12, but now I am now NOT.
My hair is one length, full of body, thick, wavy and silky and I really thought that they took most of the hair and made free wigs for children with CANCER.
I am going to look into the Pantene group and if its not what I like, I will just sell my hair and donate to a child with Cancer DIRECTLY to them, not to any organization to take most of, if not all, of the monetary donation.
I have seen little girls in second grade with bald heads from chemo, wearing in the hot sun, synthetic-more plastic looking- wigs and it's a shame.
Those damned women in LOL, what are you doing with all those millions with a 6 person operation?
My daughter had beautiful long, curly, red hair that she wanted to donate so another child who had lost her hair could have what she had. I wish I had done more research before letting her cut it off. We have not sent it to LOL yet (thank goodness) and it looks very unlikely that we will!! My 12 year old is now crying herself to sleep because she misses her hair and curls. Maybe if so many "well meaning" adults had not repeatedly "shamed" her into not sharing her beautiful hair by donating to LOL these past few years, my daughter would still have the long hair she loved. I agree, it's harrassment! None of those adults had ever grown out and donated their own hair.
We will either donate her hair to Pantene (who has a better track record) or sell the hair and send the proceeds into a charity that is worthy.
Thanks for everyone's input.
Jan
I know this comment is coming quite late, but perhaps it will rest here for those who stumble upon this through google.
The idea of giving a small child a real hair wig is kind of ridiculous. My cousin, an Orthodox Jew who wears wigs daily, had told me that a human hair wig would be way too hot, tight, and itchy for a small child. Synthetic wigs are more comfortable and easier to maintain than human-hair wigs.
After speaking with my cousin, I decided not to donate to LOL again. After my one donation to them, I started selling my hair online and sending the money to organizations that I know will put close to 100% of my donation to good use instead of marketing efforts.
Thanks again for keeping this post up and active. I imagine that many people arrive here while googling LOL and that's a great thing! Now, if only someone could get The Today Show to stop promoting LOL.
Locks for Love is a big scam! I am a guy with great hair. I am also built like a pro wrestler. The next guy who asks me to donate my hair, may get my foot up his ass!
DMAN NY
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