Recruiting Tips From the 'New York Post'
You've got to hand it to the New York Post. Not only did Rupert Murdoch's scrappy tab pull off a major coup yesterday by hiring away the top business exec at the rival Daily News, but in so doing the Posties also pioneered an entirely new recruiting technique. Usually, companies seeking new talent make sure to lavish them in praise and compliments. The Post, however, managed to lure Les Goodstein with insults.
Like in this article from March 25, 2005, at the height of the Scratch-n-Match debacle:
Daily News President Les Goodstein yesterday said the peanuts being offered to cheated Scratch n' Stiff winners is "all I can afford" as he bluntly brushed off a poor woman's plea that the paper pay her the money she deserves.
"I'm very disappointed that someone of his stature is so uncaring. That's the attitude he has," fumed Bridget Stampp, a 40-year-old Brooklyn welfare recipient who confronted the shame-faced Goodstein on his way into the Snooze's offices. "He has the money — I don't." ...
FLIP SLIP: Daily News President Les Goodstein appears rattled as he is confronted outside his office by a Scratch n' Match contest winner yesterday. Surely, we're certain his hand gesture is accidental, and not intended as an insult to his many disgruntled readers.
Or this favorite, from during the post-September 11 Anthrax scare:
Les Goodstein, president of the Daily News, should lighten up. Goodstein has been phoning The Post's advertisers trying to convince them Sean Delonas' cartoon on this page Saturday was in bad taste, and to pull their ads. One panel showed two Post execs wondering, "What sort of twisted sicko would send us anthrax?" The second showed a wild-eyed "Mort Zuckerman," the News' owner, with a jar of anthrax and licking an envelope addressed to The Post. Goodstein didn't think it was funny.
Other great moments in Post Goodstein-bashing are after the jump.
March 23, 2005:
The president of the Daily News, Les Goodstein, was all smiles yesterday as he reported to work — but the Scratch n' Match "winners" who were offered peanuts instead of the big bucks they were promised may soon get the last laugh.
The tabloid was hit with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from a slew of winners demanding the tens of millions of dollars they won — after the paper cruelly dashed their dreams by saying it wouldn't pay off.
"Our phone has not stopped ringing. There are countless victims," said Queens lawyer Steven Gildin, who has more than 30 plaintiffs for his "Scratch n' Stiff" suit....
"It's a sad state of affairs that the Daily News will stop at nothing to sell its papers," Gildin said. "April Fools is still a little while away, but it came early for these people. You can't play a game with people's emotions."
March 22, 2005:
Even now, the News refuses to take full responsibility for its bizarre gaffe — terming it "the result of the contest management firm's error." That is, it simply passed the buck to the agency that runs the contest for the News, D.L. Blair.
"We are outraged at D.L. Blair. We are outraged on behalf of our readers," said Les Goodstein, the Daily News president, yesterday. "We are going to fight to make sure that everyone gets a fair shake."
Everyone?
Try 10.
Sorry, Les: A "fair shake" means the paper needs to pay.
End of story.
