"The number of resumes from media folks seeking to transition to PR in recent months has been nothing short of shocking to me. Simply a tremendous amount of resumes floating around this way (particularly among TV folks)."—5WPR CEO Ronn [sic] Torossian, on his blog yesterday. Questionable decision-making skills, media folks!
Folio Weekly, the alt-weekly in Jacksonville, Florida (where I used to work), ran a story this month about the BDSM scene in Jacksonville. Their reporting on sexual practices that are not licensed by the Baptist church outraged a Jacksonville City Councilman, naturally, and he's made a formal call for the city to remove all of Folio's distribution boxes from its property. Which the city is seriously considering. The righteous councilman reasons that children go to libraries, and what's to prevent them from picking up this article and turning into whip-wielding kink fiends? And the worst part is he was actually forced to read the blasphemous article—slowly, no doubt—in order to know what the god-fearing citizens are up against! From his letter to the mayor:
The Drudge Report's permanent list of links to blogs, papers, columnists, and other sources has always been idiosyncratic. Peggy Noonan and Rosie O'Donnell share precious space with Forbes and CNN; blogs are generally underrepresented but Gawker's long been a staple. Earlier today, he quietly updated. New to the Drudge permalink club: Daily Kos, Free Republic, and Talking Points Memo, among others. The man's had Perez Hilton up there for god knows how long but he's just now getting around to a web magazine that's been online almost as long as he has? And such belated recognition of Kos? Is liberals growing hatred of Hillary Clinton really all it took to win Matt's love?
In an episode that was simultaneously poignant, noble, and hilariously out of touch, old New York Times reporter David Dunlap—who is always on the lookout for "illegal marketing campaigns"— says he "sensed a story on the evening of the 14th, when I came across two or three young men stapling posters for a new hip-hop album to lampposts." He started taking pictures of them, and they asked him what he was doing. He replied that what they were doing was illegal; then a guy attacked him and smashed his camera [City Room via FishbowlNY]! Dunlap got pushed down and roughed up, but is unharmed. And he refuses to press charges, because he's so grateful that they didn't stomp him out or rob him at the same time!
Vice Magazine, which was ironically abandoned by its target audience of dirty trendsetters at the exact moment it became popular, has finally discovered how to sell out IN SECRET. The new issue has an ad for BMW superimposed on the freaking cover itself—but it doesn't appear until you turn out the lights! As long as you don't read it in the dark, nobody will know you are bought and owned by corporations just like everything else in this rotten country, dude. This is a brilliant idea that may save the American print media and destroy the editorial/ advertising divide as we know it, and that's really all we have to say about that. [Media In Canada]
In the Guardian, Tom Sykes, author of addiction memoir What Did I Do Last Night?, tells us how his publisher, along with a lawyer, made him fact-check his memoir: by sending the manuscript to everyone mentioned, including his drug dealer! Some of these people, while accurately described, were pissed. Especially Chris Wilson, formerly of Page Six and currently of Maxim!
The Fox Network: freedom fighters, or the anchor around American pop culture's neck as it plummets down to the inevitable lowest common denominator in all forms of entertainment? Could be both! Fox is refusing to pay a $91,000 indecency fine from the FCC for a 2003 episode of the execrable show "Married By America" that featured guys licking whipped cream off strippers and being spanked [Variety]. On one hand, screw the uptight fascists at the FCC and their enforced moralizing! On the other hand, we know Fox is fighting this just so they don't set any precedents that would hinder their rush towards programming that will culminate in live executions of the poor on TV. So it's hard not to be torn on this issue. Below, what appears to be the only clip on YouTube of "Married By America' (not the stripper one). This was a justifiably unpopular show.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has apparently hired Sard Verbinnen & Co. to help him with his bountiful PR needs. Anna Cordasco, a managing director at the firm, was quoted in the Post today as a spokesperson for Spitzer. Sard, as the agency is referred to in a shorthand that annoys co-founder Paul Verbinnen to no end, is one of the top three agencies of its type in the country. Its type being, specialists in high level business-focused PR, as well as crises. They are a major player in financial PR and M&A work, but they also handle lots of different media clients, and crisis work that you often never even hear about. They're very calculating, reserved, and, to use a cliche, strategic. Also, very expensive. They'll probably do a good job for Spitzer—they're not the type to leak, unless they have a good reason. Much of their work will doubtless involve keeping Spitzer out of the news, to the extent they can, until things blow over a bit and they can help relaunch him on some carefully selected positive-looking projects. And, of course, avoiding Choire Sicha's questions. [NYO/ NYP]
PR firms are mighty enthusiastic to have relations with bloggers. Close, close relations. APCO Worldwide—a scarily connected lobbying and PR superfirm with all types of ex-politicos on its payroll (including former White House flack Scottie McClellan!)—just released a survey on "The State Of Blog Relations," that asked both bloggers and PR people about their ideas on how they can make nice with each other [via PRWeek, where I used to work]. So the flacks all came off like devious bastards, right? Well, some, but the bloggers also came off like money-grubbing sellouts!
We're still not sure why dreamy CNN anchor Anderson Cooper profiled dreamy "football" star David Beckham on 60 Minutes last night (something about Beckham being rich and famous and dreamy?) but he did. And it's on the internet! We're sure the old people who make up the 60 Minutes audience wondered who these dashing young men were and why they were invading their TV screens with their youthful virility and mutual appreciation of athletic prowess. Becks' amazing robot wife Victoria, oddly, is barely mentioned. Full segment, after the jump.
Serious-minded online magazine Slate usually deals in conventional wisdom upending, but over the last couple days they're just going in for political fanfic. First: what if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could both be president? At the same time! OMG best ever! We bet Han Solo and Captain Kirk woulda totally been bros too! Maybe Obama and Al Gore can team up with Wolverine to end global warming? ALSO wouldn't it be totally kick-ass if Hillary Clinton gave a really good speech about being a lady, like how Obama gave that speech about being black? That would be so cool. And it might go... a little something... like this:
First, the media implants an unattainable idea in our heads about what a human body should look like. Then, on top of that, popular publications give confusing advice about how to achieve that impossibly cut look! In the last couple of days, the lying liberal media has published several articles on various fitness techniques. You don't need to read any of them, because we're about to round them all up and drop some serious knowledge on you about the phony, media-driven fitness fantasy. After the jump, how to save money and kick ass in this shallow, workout-obsessed world.
Arianna Huffington came to this internet with little more than a URL, a dream and a whole lot of connections. Now, according to Nielsen online, the Huffington Post has surpassed the Drudge Report in traffic. What perfect timing for a New Yorker essay on the state of online journalism and how she's changing the rules.
The question weighing on the mind of the print media at large is, "In what month will I be getting laid off?" But in the luxury print media sector, the question is more like, "Will our readers be buying more, or fewer, private planes this year? And when should I buy mine?" As hard as it is for crusading journalism school grads to admit, magazines targeting upscale readers—a polite term for "rich Wall Street bastards"—will naturally attract more premium advertising, and are usually better positioned to ride out any crazy economic fluctuations than other magazines whose readers are quicker to go broke. Or are they?
"It's impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up," Dowd writes. "Unless every circuit is out, she'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama's wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams." The "Hillerator" image was created by Gawker's Richard Blakeley, who notes, "Yes, I'm that bored today and no it didn't take me THAT long." [NYT]
For years, Barack Obama was simply an affable guy called "Barry." "When Sen. Barack Obama moved from using the name Barry to Barack, his formal name, it was part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging-to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry. Part black, part white, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with family of different religious and spiritual backgrounds-seen by others in ways he didn't see himself-the young Barry was looking for solid ground. At Occidental College, he was feeling like he was at a 'dead end'... 'that somehow I needed to connect with something bigger than myself.'"
The crap economy and the internet are turning America's super-stores into haggling dens where savvy shoppers and retailers negotiate sales without regard for sticker prices, according to today's New York Times. "'We want to work with the customer, and if that happens to mean negotiating a price, then we're willing to look at that,' said Kathryn Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Home Depot." Haggling at Home Depot? That'd be kind of neat if it happened. But it doesn't-at least not anywhere in the article.
Tribune CEO Sam Zell's plan to cut 400 to 500 jobs from his newspaper fiefdom—including 150 positions at the Los Angeles Times alone—could be good news for some eager younglings. Rumors are mounting that LAT publisher David Hiller is hot to replace all those costly veteran reporters with J-School kids just hungry and indebted enough to work for scraps. If you've heard anything, kindly hit the tips button. [najp.org]
Such is the plight of the dying magazine business: Newsweek paid what's rumored to be a high-six-figures ransom not to keep Steven Levy, its star tech writer, but to unburden itself of him just so he could join Wired. The Washington Post-owned weekly is offering editorial staff generous buyouts, up to two years' salaries, to reduce its headcount. Levy smartly leapt at the offer, knowing he could easily get a job elsewhere. Something seems backwards in this labor market: Don't acquirers normally pay a premium for control?
