Jeff and Scott Baker were hoping to win some attention for the boiled-down plea to President Obama they put up this week on a billboard along the Niagara Thruway.

Did they ever.

CBS, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC are just a few of the news organizations that picked up the message of frustration— “Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period.”—from the brothers’ billboard.

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“I’m overwhelmed by it, personally,” Scott Baker, an Akron resident, said Thursday during Obama’s serendipitously timed visit to Buffalo.

Since the article about the Baker boys’ billboard was published Wednesday on the front page of The Buffalo News, news organizations from across the country have contacted the brothers.

Jeff Baker, the brothers’ main spokesman, has been interviewed for CNN’s “American Morning,” by Fox News’ Major Garrett and MSNBC’s Dylan Rattigan, and for a segment on “The CBS Evening News.”

The story also has gained wide play on the Internet, everywhere from the Huffington Post — “Buffalo’s Message To Obama: ‘I Need A Freakin’ Job’ ” — to USA Today — “Obama takes some heat in Buffalo.”

The CBS segment included two of the Buffalo State College students who appeared on the billboard and on a video posted on the brothers’ Web site,

www.inafj.org

. Scott Baker said his brother designed the site and produced the professional- looking video, using students Scott found through a friend on the college faculty, Jim Mayrose.

Mayrose said that many of the students soon will be looking for a job themselves and that a few of them plan to stay in school to wait out the current poor economy.

He said he’s thrilled that the billboard and the site are getting so much attention.

“I think it’s fantastic, and I hope the momentum does something,” said Mayrose, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology.

A skeptic might say the whole thing sounds too good to be true, but the brothers say they had no idea Obama was coming to Western New York when they booked the billboard.

And an official with Lamar Outdoor Advertising confirmed that the contract for the billboard was signed April 20, well before news of Obama’s visit was released.

Scott Baker said that he was dumbstruck when he learned May 6 that Obama was coming to this area and that he let his brother know the good news right away.

“I called him and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ ” Scott Baker said.

The brothers have been planning this project for months and filmed the interviews with the Buffalo State students a couple of months ago.

Scott Baker paid the $5,500 rental fee for the billboard to support his unemployed brother, whose company, Adirondack Blanket Works, went out of business about 15 months ago.

“You couldn’t spend money any better,” said Scott, who is vice president of operations at a local manufacturing company.

As for any tangible effect from the billboard publicity, Scott Baker said the brothers have sold a few — “very few”— T-shirts with the INAFJ logo from their Web site.

Still, the person to whom their billboard was addressed never drove past it during his visit to the area.

The billboard is visible from the southbound Niagara Thruway near Smith Street, but Obama’s motorcade route from Buffalo Niagara International Airport didn’t take him there.