A couple of Wisenheimer Brooklyn guys questioned my memory in the week-in-review post. They are correct – P.S. 244 is a grade school in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, that I went to earlier. The public school in Gerritsen Beach is P.S. 277. See proof below, second from the bottom, second from the right. I am the goofy looking kid surrounded by the other goofballs – it was requirement back then that all Brooklyn school kids must look like extras from Spaceballs.
PR/Media Week-in-Review, 07/27/08
July 27, 2008 By 1 Comment
Jew on Jew Violence
My first day in grade school at P.S. 244 (correction: it’s P.S. 277) in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, a tall Irish thug named Patrick Selkirk introduced himself by sharing his favorite joke: “What’s the fastest means of transportation?” asked Patrick. I shrugged. “Throw a penny and hop on a Jews back,” he said and Patrick and his gang of thugs cracked up and boasted of making raids into ‘Jewland’ (neighboring Marine Park) to beat up on kids like me. Patrick and his boys made good on those boasts. Enticing and evading the Irish gangs was a favorite activity back then until we developed our own brand of thuggery, albeit much more subtle.
Nocera to PR: Screw You
July 22, 2008 By 2 Comments
New York Times curmudgeon and PR basher Joe Nocera remains unrepentant for his mean outing of a PR person who dared send him a pitch he did not approve of.
In a blog post yesterday he defends his public ridicule of Amanda Miller of Nike Communications for what he sees as blatant stupidity. Says the fashion-challenged Nocera: ”What offended me was that Miller tried to pitch the idea that children have become fashion accessories. Her glib acceptance of that grotesque notion was what drove me around the bend, and caused me to publish her e-mail. I would do it again in a second.”
Public Relations – A Higher Calling?
July 21, 2008 By 1 Comment
He described the Pope’s meeting with victims as a cynical move designed by public relations experts. “It doesn’t alter things, because it’s purely public relations,” Dr Barrett told Fairfax Radio Network. “It’s all about just managing the crisis … it’s typical, they (the church) always do it in this way.” – see story in theage.com.au
Il Papa ha ascoltato le loro storie e li ha consolati – “He listened to their stories and offered them consolation,” according to the 7/21/08 Daily Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office. The man behind that message is Jesuit Father Frederico Lombardi (left, working the phones), the director of the Holy See Press Office. A lifelong journalist, Fr. Lombardi was ‘spinning’ the Pope’s continued outreach to victims of sexual abuse by the clergy. The Pope is making a point of ‘hearing’ sexual abuse victims and therefore showing his concern and empathy.
The problem with that, according to critics in the story from Australia quoted above, is that ‘hearing’ and ‘consoling’ does not lead to ’doing’. They are clamoring for action and the Pope is making PR gestures. What more could he do?
PR/Media Week-in-Review, 07-20-2008
July 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Loren Feldman Goes Too Far
“How do you know you’ve gone too far until you go there?” – anon | This quote should be on the 1938Media web site. As we know, Loren Feldman, the ganza macher of 1938Media, likes to push the edges. Technigga, his digital trilogy to racial stereotypes and the vacuity of social media, was perhaps his boldest stride into comedic social commentary. The whole “black tech” issue came back to haunt Loren recently with a dustup with NPR - he’s like a heat seeking missile for controversy.
What’s to become of Loren Feldman? There was buzz of a C-Net deal, Verizon signed him up for a day or two before they realized his content could not be controlled, he tried integrating into Mahalo like a MTV V-Jay (NO!), he floated the idea of charging for “premium” content (apparently 99 cents was too much for most people), and he hobnobbed with Calacanis in Brentwood and Arrington in the Bay area like Blanche DuBois relying on the kindness of strangers. He even gave up pounding on Shel Israel and absolved Julia Allison - still he could not go mainstream with the digerati.
Joe Nocera is a big fat idiot
July 16, 2008 By 7 Comments
Okay, maybe he’s not big and fat. Nocera, the curmudgeonly New York Times business columnist who has a long history of flagrant animosity toward PR people has had a flare-up. Apparently, he had nothing of 
substance to blog about so he holds up a PR pitch for ridicule. That’s an old trick that is supposed to showcase Nocera’s superiority and publicly flog a poor PR person while condemning the entire industry.
OK, the pitch is inane and Nocera is not a journalist you pitch about children as the new accessories or anything to do with “Brangelina.” Nocera is a serious guy who likes to hobnob with the titans of industry while maintaining the cloak of the ‘serious journalist.’
Barack Obama is a bomb-throwing Muslim radical
July 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment
That’s the message you’re supposed to get from the cover of the New Yorker that has the Obama campaign PR machine in a tizzy over how to react. I am a New Yorker, not necessarily a New Yorker reader. To me, the cover is obviously satirical and not much more radical than some previous New Yorker covers, so what’s the big deal?
The purpose of a provocative magazine cover, of course, is to generate buzz and sell magazines. Judged by that criteria, this is highly successful commercial art. Both Obama and McCain can write this off as further proof that the east coast effete intellectual media is out of touch with the rest of the “normal” people out there who find this grossly offensive. I am rarely offended by free speech and artistic expression, and I am always amused by how the “rest of the country” can both admire and revile, and attempt to dismiss us here in the naked city.
PR/Media Week in Review 07-13-2008
July 13, 2008 By 2 Comments
What is Ronn Torossian thinking?
Torossian, CEO of 5W PR, really stepped in it this week and hubris and deflection will not save him. He needs to fire Juda Engelmayer and accept full responsibility for the latest ethical lapse at his company or suffer serious credibility damage.
The thumbnail of this outrageous story: Engelmayer impersonated a prominent Rabbi and fabicated other characters who posted laudatory comments about a 5W client and mimicked critics in blogs and chats. Shmarya Rosenberg of FailedMessiah.com did some sharp investigating and found that the posts were coming from Engelmayer.
At first, Torossian countered with his usual bluster: “I have complete confidence in knowing that my account team who runs these accounts did not make these posts.”
Andrew Cohen & the Lying Profession
July 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Andrew Cohen issued an “opinion” on CBS News June 1 that is still reverberating around the PR world. Cohen is a “legal analyst” who obviously had a bad experience with a PR person who probably couldn’t stand his sanctimony and ignorance and tried to warn him about his public perception. According to Cohen the entire PR profession is a sham and everyone in it is a liar, end of story, so why are we surprised by Scott McClellan’s late-stage confession of PR misdeeds?
As a counterpoint I was going to list all the journalists who have been caught fabricating sources and entire stories for USA Today, The New York Times, his employer, CBS, and countless other media outlets, but Cohen is not a journalist, he’s an “analyst” and cannot be held to any journalistic standards.
Rabid Fox PR Takes Buckshot from NYT
July 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment
When Fox News is the Story, David Carr’s groundbreaking story in the The New York Times yesterday, is part confession, part reportage, advocacy and above all, deeply personal. It is a great piece of news reporting that could only be personal – the attacks of the Fox News PR bloodhounds are personal, vicious, unrelenting and remorseless.
There’s nothing wrong with aggressive PR, with protecting your own and fighting to get your point of view included. Fox PR crosses the line, any line you want to imagine, when it uses its news and commentary shows to eviscerate its enemies – anybody who does not agree with them. Their doctoring of 
“enemy” journalist photos for public stonings is not only horribly nasty, it’s bizarre, arguably anti-semetic, and proves that Fox news product is driven by Roger Ailes’ right-wing media/politico PR complex.
