Archive for April, 2007
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Schwartzenegger speaks againstgenocide
April 23, 2007
Press critics have a point when they say the media rarely reports the &;good news.&; The &;good news&; about the Holocaust is that even as survivors are felled by time, the next generation is dedicated to saying never again to genocides like Darfur.
One member of that generation is California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger. On April 15, he spoke to an audience of about 2000, many of them Holocaust survivors and their families, at Holocaust Remembrance day in Los Angeles. Schwartzenegger gave a powerful speech that was not as widely reported as it deserved.
&;As you know, I was born in Austria, a country that I love, but a country with a horrible history, a place where intolerance and ignorance led to the atrocities and to murder. My mother told me many stories about the horrors of the Holocaust. She was working as a young secretary in Austria during that time. She told me that after the Anschluss how she went one day to work and saw in the morning bodies lying there on the side of the road, shot to death because they were Jews. Another time she saw bodies hang from the trees in our state park&;
But the sad story is that in this last 15 year the death toll from genocide has been staggering. We all know the thousands of people that were killed in former Yugoslavia. We know the 800,000 that were murdered in Rwanda, and the 200,000 that were killed in Darfur, and the numbers are growing every day.
So on this day of Yom HaShoah let us remember the 8 million Jews and the millions of other people who were killed during the Holocaust. Let us also remember the endless amount of people that were killed just recently in genocides. Let us pray that those murders will stop. Let us pray. And above all, let us not say that we could have done more to stop the acts of genocide that we see today, and those that we will see in the future. Today we must stand up and speak out against all of those who would commit those atrocities, and then we can hope that for one day that Darfur is known as the last human genocide to disgrace our world. &;
Schwartzenegger, like Reagan, is often dismissed as a lightweight mouthing lines from his movies. His blunders get world attention. But as with Reagan, a dispassionate observer can see the energy, optimism and call to action in Schwartzenegger&;s speeches. An earlier Bush made fun of it, but a Barack Obama or a Schwartzenegger can touch America&;and the world&;with that rare &;vision thing.&;
Posted in Journalism, Politics, Public Relations | Leave a Comment &;
NBC and the Virginia Tech shootervideo
April 20, 2007
NBC made the editorial decision to broadcast the multimedia packet the Virginia Tech murderer thoughtfully took time out of his crazy busy day to express mail to the network. Any criticism of NBC&;s decision must be jealousy from rival networks that didn&;t get &;the get&;, the exclusive post-shooting posthumous interview.
But why stop there? There&;s many hours to fill in a 24 hour cable news day, and today marks the convergence of many &;anniversaries&; the media loves to revisit. Today, April 20, is Hitler&;s birthday&;why not broadcast his speeches? There&;s also plenty of video available of the April 1999 Columbine shooting, and of the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, including this exclusive interview with executed mass murderer Timothy McVeigh.
Last year I interviewed George Holliday for the LA Times Magazine West. Holliday, one of the first citizen journalists, shot the Rodney King video from his window. His life hasn&;t been the same since. His ed video was shown so often (with minimal payment to him) it became &;wallpaper&;, in the words of a CNN exec.
Did the constant showing of the video inflame the tensions that led to the LA riots fifteen Aprils ago? And will constantly showing the Virginia Tech shooter&;s heinous deeds create copycats, the way the Columbine killers inspired him?
News directors really need to think&;and maybe pray&;before they show.
Posted in Journalism, Television | Leave a Comment &;
Accountants GoneWild
April 18, 2007
The hoopla over Tax Day is muted this year, and rightly so. There will still be a few in-front-of-the-post-office standups on the evening news, and some tax comedy from the likes of him.
Even the richest and most powerful CEOs can&;t resist cheating, so yet another new player might be wearing pinstripes soon. &;I want that money!&; shouts Zero in The Producers, before he&;s arrested for creative accounting.
Are you listening, Joe?
Posted in Joe Francis, Journalism | 1 Comment &;
Joe Francis: America&;s MostHated
April 18, 2007
Joe Francis is a man America loves to hate. He&;s tall, rich, arrogant and arguably handsome. He&;s seen as a pornographer and exploiter of underage girls, and worst of all, he&;s an intimate friend of Paris Hilton (link NSFW). And his company&;s unconscionable use of the &;approval&; sales process (once you&;ve ordered, they keep sending you new DVDs and charging your credit card) put the FTC on the case.
Now the guys who brought down Al Capone are after him. It&;s no wonder he tried to get a little relief in his lonely cell.
But Francis may be a canary in a coal mine illuminating government attacks on &;pornographers&;&;and a victim of his own success. When you really need friends, it’s too late to make them, and Francis mistook the hangers on, leerers and entourage for friends. He didn&;t buy respectability like this First Amendment defender.
Francis may also be targeted by what Andrew Sullivan calls the Christianists in power. Judge Smoak, who said,“It does not take a very brave man to go out and corner a girl in the middle of spring break who had four drinks,” is a Bush appointee and a long-time resident of Panama City, Florida, which has been after Francis for years.
Posted in Joe Francis, Public Relations, Publishing, Sex and Society, Television | Leave a Comment &;
Same Old ShootingScript
April 18, 2007
Mass shootings seem to unfold with tragic slowness. But we&;ve had enough of them to know the script. (Full disclosure: I helped manage communications and wrote statements on two separate shooting crises for corporate clients.)
The scattered, chaotic bulletins full of incomplete and incorrect information.
The agonizingly slow police response, almost always too late.
The rising death toll updated like a scoreboard
Statements and an information page posted by the institution in crisis.
Prayers and posts against gun control, violent videogames, psychiatric drugs, etc.
The announcement that the shooter is dead, almost always by his own hand.
The media frenzy to get the name, then track down a biography and those who knew the shooter, inevitably a &;loner.&;
Expressions of sorrow from high officials.
Officials are praised.
Officals are blamed.
The media searches for heroes amidst the devastation.
The memorial process begins; cameras cut away from the awful weeping.
The recriminations (including those against the intrusive media) and lawsuits begin.
The next shooting will reference the last.
Can&;t we change the script?
Posted in Journalism, Public Relations | 1 Comment &;
MurderousIrony
April 17, 2007
The irony is thick and sad; a professor survives the Holocaust, only to die saving students by barricading his classroom door at Virginia Tech against the gunman. Meanwhile, interest groups fasten onto the tragedy like leeches. In terms of media saavy on what to say&;and what not to&;the NRA is actually a little smarter.
Posted in Journalism, Public Relations | Leave a Comment &;
Why NewspapersMatter
April 16, 2007
Think about Turkey much? Me neither. But I learned today that more than 250,000 Turks marched against religious fundamentalism to defend the idea of a secular state. &;We don&;t want to become Iran,&; said one interviewee. Where did I learn this? In the newspaper delivered to my door this morning, the much-maligned LA Times.
Yes, such information is certainly available on the Internet. But you&;d have to search it out. More importantly, you&;d have to know you wanted to know. A good newspaper serves up familiar and unfamiliar items to you like a smorgasbord. All too often, the blogosphere offers only comfort food for your pre-concieved notions, whether you carry your tray left or right in the cafeteria.
Posted in Journalism, Publishing | Leave a Comment &;
Grand TheftCorporate
April 13, 2007
My humble suggestion for Take-Two Interactive&;s branding challenge.
Posted in Consumer Electronics, Public Relations, Videogames | Leave a Comment &;
The End of the MadonnaTheory
April 13, 2007
The Madonna theory states, roughly, that all publicity is good publicity. Corollary: There is no such thing as bad publicity. (Other Madonna theories here.)
Professional public relations people protested, but to no avail. Paris Hilton enthusiastically adopted it (although Paris is smart enough to always be very, very nice to photographers). So did the trainwreck crowd (Lindsay, Britney, Ashley, etc).
But such &;priceless&; worldwide publicity hasn&;t helped Don Imus (although I&;m cynical enough to say &;yet&;). Even the Material Girl&;s thick skin was pricked; she blamed the press, but she could have communicated her adoption story with more grace.
The take-away: Know your story, work out your messages&;and watch what you say.
Posted in Imus, Music, Public Relations | Leave a Comment &;
BET Tackles theN-Word
April 12, 2007
Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, and his ex-wife, who owns a WNBA team, blasted Don Imus. It smelled of hypocrisy, as BET devotes hours to broadcasting the very raunchiest of videos. Then I saw this.
Posted in Imus, Music, Television | Leave a Comment &;
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