Archive for the &;Barack-Obama&; Category

Obama Kneecaps LasVegas

March 11, 2009

Although Las Vegas workers were key to Barack Obama&;s successful campaign to win the &;battleground&; state of Nevada, so far he has repaid them with the back of his hand.  At issue is Obama&;s bluenose comment &;You can&;t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers&; dime. There&;s got to be some accountability and some responsibility.”   It&;s not just banks like Bank America that have cancelled scheduled trips, which are typically eagerly-awaited rewards for top salespeople and marketers. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports: * The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported 340 event cancellations in the past 90 days. * The situation has cost the local economy about $131.6 million in lost spending. * The rampant flaking on Las Vegas business trips and the cancellation of conventions and business meetings has cost LV resorts 111,800 guests and 236,700 room nights Rather than look bad, corporations would rather cancel and pay the cancellation fee.  The fleshpots of Las Vegas may not be professor Obama&;s cup of decaffeinated tea, but a lot of unionized workers depend on the celebration of capitalism there for their income.

Tags:Barack-Obama, Las Vegas, Las-Vegas-conventions, meetings-and-conventions, Oscar-Goodman Posted in Barack-Obama, business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Obama Aide Learns There&;s No &;Off theRecord&;

March 11, 2008

No.  As professor and writer Samantha Powers found out last week, you can&;t do it.  There is no off the record. Powers, an adviser to Barack Obama, was quoted in The Scotsman as saying of the Hilary Clinton campaign &;They&;re obsessed&;she&;s a monster..and that&;s off the record.&;  That late defense didn&;t work; she ended up resigning from the campaign and apologizing.  Her unfortunate but newsworthy comment also overwhelmed Powers&; actual agenda&;to use the press to promote her new book. As a media trainer for many international companies, &;everything you say is on the record&; is a key point I try to pound home with impressionable young product managers and less-impressionable, &;know-it-all&; senior management.  They blanch when I tell them, &;If you&;re drinking with a journalist until 3AM at a Las Vegas trade show, anything he remembers will be on the Web the next day.&; If you are going to talk to the press, understand they&;ll use your quotes if they&;re interesting.  And don&;t expect to be able to take back your words;  if Powers had called Hilary a &;monster&; on live television, whether she took it back or not, there&;s no doubt that it would be on the record. When Tucker Carlson challenged Scotsman reporter Gerri Peev for not heeding Powers&; plea to ignore her &;monster&; comment, Gerri Peev asked, &;Are you really that acquiescent in the United States?  In the United Kingdom, journalists believe that on or off the record is a principle that&;s decided ahead of the interview.&; Carlson may be right  when he implies the UK press would sell out its mother to get a story.  Cutting their teeth chasing royals, the Brits are bolder.  When I worked at the National Enquirer (and made the near-fatal mistake of trying to keep up drinking with them) the unofficial motto seemed to be &;if you need some shit get a Brit&;.   But while Peev may seem like a nasty piece of work, she&;s just a tough-minded journalist  &;If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren&;t doing a very good job of getting to the truth.&; That elusive truth is what journalists dig for.  And that&;s why there&;s no such thing as &;off the record.&;

Posted in Barack-Obama, Hilary-Clinton, Hilary-Clinton-monster, Media Training, Samantha-Powers | Leave a Comment &;