Archive for February, 2010
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White Woman Rides LABus!
February 27, 2010
Shocker! Only in the LA Times.
Tags:death-of-newspapers, LA-Times, public-transit Posted in Journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Jail forWhales
February 25, 2010
Twitter has its &;Fail Whale&;.
Seaworld has its jail whale.
Yesterday, Tilikum the orca killed his trainer at Seaworld in Florida. It&;s the third person he&;s killed in 20 years of captivity.
In most states he&;d be a locked-down lifer, like Thomas Silverstein. Both have killed three humans, and this American Museum of Natural History expert called this a premeditated attack.
But convicts are judged and convicted by other humans. Tilikum has been a locked-down lifer for 20 years. Who makes the decision to enslave whales for our entertainment?
Imagine a conversation between Tillikum and his captors. (One of my former PR colleagues had the Seaworld account; part of her job was to take journalists out on the &;capture boat&; to show them how humane the Shamu-capture was.)
&;We&;re going to take you out of the ocean and put you in a tank.&;
&;What?&;
&;No more freezing in the northern seas. You&;ll be in Florida.&;
&;Where?&;
&;You won&;t lead the pod and the females anymore. You&;ll occasionally have sex to provide new whales for Seaworld.&;
&;What?&;
&;Best of all, you&;ll be trained as an entertainer. We&;ll feed you salmon as a treat and you&;ll get to play with a ball in front of crowds!&;
&;What?&;
&;But you can&;t kill anyone.&;
&;Really?&;
Tags:animal-rights, Seaworld, Shamu, Tillikum, Tillikum-killer-orca Posted in animals-in-the-news, public-relations-disaster | Leave a Comment &;
Newsweek isPathetic
February 24, 2010
Newsweek can&;t bring itself to call Joseph Stack, the murderer who crashed his plane into a government office in Austin, Texas and killed a decorated veteran, a terrorist. Their internal debate is here. Managing Editor Kathy Jones: &;Here is my handy guide:
Lone wolfish American attacker who sees gov&;t as threat to personal freedom: bomber, tax protester, survivalist, separatist
Group of Americans bombing/kidnapping to protest U.S. policies on war/poverty/personal freedom/ &; radical left-wing movement, right-wing separatists
All foreign groups or foreign individuals bombing/shooting to protest American gov&;t: terrorists.&;
As Glenn Greenwald puts it, &;So according to Newsweek&;s Managing Editor, only a foreigner who &;protests the American government&; can be a Terrorist. Americans cannot be. &;
If you indiscriminantly murder (or attempt to murder) innocent people you don&;t know in the service of your ideology, you are a terrorist. This includes Timothy McVeigh and partners in crime, Major Hasan, Theodore Kaczynski, and the scumbag who shot two people to death at LAX in 2002 that the FBI still refuses to call terrorism. And Joseph Stack.
Tags:Newsweek, Newsweek-pathetic, terrorism, terrorism-in-the-U.S. Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, Newsweek | Leave a Comment &;
EnquirerEligible!
February 23, 2010
A great injustice has been addressed! The National Enquirer is now eligible for a Pulitzer for its John Edwards coverage!
I highly doubt they&;ll win. Old battleships like the Pulitzer Committee (itself named after one of the greatest &;yellow journalists&; of all time) don&;t turn around so fast. But hey, even the LA Times links to the Enquirer now.
Quite a change from when I was ostracized at dinner parties for writing for &;that rag.&;
Tags:John-Edwards, National-Enquirer, Pulitzer-Prize, The-National-Enquirer Posted in Journalism, Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, tabloid-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
LA Times Links to Enquirer for John EdwardsCoverage
February 11, 2010
If you can&;t beat them, link to them.
The LA Times actually printed a story today not only &;crediting&; the National Enquirer with the scoop that John Edwards has supposedly proposed to main squeeze/girlfriend/homewrecker/babymama Rielle Hunter, but actually put a link in the Times story taking you directly to the Enquirer piece!
Perhaps the Times also has a dented Pulitzer or two lying around it can mail to the Enquirer to acknowledge its Edwards coverage, since the Pulitzer committee won&;t do it.
UPDATE: Here&;s the Times linking sentence: &;For the Enquirer&;s full article on the Edwards&; engagement, click HERE&;
Tags:John-Edwards, John-Edwards-lovechild, Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, Pulitzer, Rielle-Hunter Posted in Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, Politics, tabloid-journalism | 3 Comments &;
Toyota ScapegoatingSupplier?
February 10, 2010
Is Goliath-sized Toyota scapegoating their David-sized supplier, CTS Corp?
It&;s hard to count the ways Toyota has turned what should have been a simple product recall (several years ago) into a snowballing PR disaster. Now it appears they are scapegoating a supplier&;in addition to slow disclosure, stonewalling investigators, denial, failure to get out in front of the issue, non-availability of corporate leadership, uncoordinated and negative actions by stakeholders (the dealership attack on just one of the messengers, ABC News), to name a few.
The angry dealers might also want to cancel their subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal.
In addition to noting Congress doesn&;t buy Toyota&;s pedal and floormat fix, the Journal is questioning Toyota&;s putting the blame on CTS Corp. The WSJ checked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who confirmed that CTS-built gas pedals get stuck only at low speed and aren&;t &;believed to make cars accelerate out of control.&; According to CTS, the sticking pedals have occured in fewer than 20 cases and have never been linked to any accidents.
Many suspect possible software issues with the electronic control system in the vehicles. Toyota may not even know what the problem is. Whatever the real fix is, blaming a supplier only makes Toyota look worse.
Tags:Toyota, Toyota-disaster, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, Public Relations, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment &;
ABC News Hangs Tough onToyota
February 10, 2010
Bravo to ABC News, hanging tough in the face of Toyota&;s shameful attempt to intimidate, control coverage and &;punish&; ABC by pulling their advertising.
Instead, ABC News went full throttle (sorry) on Toyota again, running an exclusive interview with Dimitrios Biller today.
Biller worked as managing counsel for Toyota&;s American operations from 2003 to 2007. His comments? &;You have to understand that Toyota in Japan does not have any respect for our legal system. They did not have any respect for our laws.&; Unhappy ex-employee? Sure, but one who says the company made a practice of not revealing safety issues.
&;They were hiding evidence, concealing evidence, destroying evidence, obstructing justice,&; said Biller.
The Toyota recall(s)&;and coverup&;is a big story. It&;s not just how many Toyota owners there are in the United States. How many vulnerable children travel in Toyotas every day? How many of us shares the road with a Toyota at any given time? ABC is right to stick with this story like a terrier cornering a rat.
And when Toyota finally puts its house in order, the advertisers will come back to ABC.
Tags:ABC-News, Toyota, Toyota-dealers, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Advertising, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, public-relations-disaster | 2 Comments &;
Toyota Dealers Compound Public RelationsDisaster
February 9, 2010
News flash: Toyota doesn&;t know what they&;re doing. And apparently, not just in terms of making safe cars, but in terms of communicating.
If the company&;s slow disclosure, foot-dragging, lack of responsiveness and weak apologies aren&;t bad enough, Toyota dealers are engaged in classic blame-the-messenger behavior, pulling ads from ABC, which has displayed a rare pair in fully covering the crisis. The 173 Southern dealers in five states cited &;excessive coverage of the Toyota issues.&;
Telling, Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency that handles the account for Southeast Toyota, &;tried&; to talk the dealers out of the move, but they insisted on &;punishing&; ABC for their own company&;s problems.
This is a textbook example of when you&;re in a hole, keep digging with a backhoe.
Just as bad: Jack Fitzgerald, a Washington, DC, dealer, told the AP, &;I can&;t wait for the village idiot to dump his Toyota for nothing. I can certainly make money on it.&;
Good to see that the classic American car dealer, far from being a dying breed, is still providing the ethical service that has long distinguished them.
Tags:ABC-News, Toyota-dealers, Toyota-disaster, Toyota-Prius, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, public-relations-disaster | 3 Comments &;
YaySaints!
February 8, 2010
OK I&;m a sucker for a comeback story.
But it&;s also easy to pick a Superbowl team to cheer for if you live in LA, not La. We&;re not bound to rooting for a hometown team. As the football gods don&;t like us as we won&;t appropriate a billion dollars for a stadium, we&;re Free Agent Nation round here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
CBS News Bloodbath: A ModestProposal
February 3, 2010
CBS News staffers are freaked out that at least 90 positions will be eliminated in the latest budget ax-fest, including shutting the Moscow bureau and reducing Tel Aviv to one producer. They say it&;s not just fears about their own jobs; “One news executive said, ‘We were covering the news with one arm tied behind our back. Now we’re going to do it with two arms tied behind our back.’ ”
Modest proposal: They could put back 75 news people earning $150,000 plus $50,000 in benefits (sounds good to me at this point!) for the $15 million they pay Katie Couric for a year.
Will it happen? Naaaah.
UPDATE: (8:15PM Eastern Time)
Maybe it will happen. Drudge says the CBS natives are revolting&;
Tags:CBS-NEWS, journalism-cutbacks, Katie-Couric Posted in CBS, CBS-NEWS, death-of-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
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