The Flack

Someone once asked me what PR people are good for. Aren't they just spinners or obfuscators of the truth? Other than the fact that PR people play an indelible role in the news gathering process -- like it or not -- it is in times of human crisis where their skills shine most. I remember a letter one PR person wrote to an industry trade following the Tsunami disaster in south Asia. He bemoaned the fact that those monitoring the earthquake (that set off the Tsunami) did not have the PR wherewithal to contact a global wire service like Reuters or The AP to get the word out in time to do something. The scientists were obsessed with going through government channels -- and we all know how frustrating that can be.

It's no different with Katrina. Yes, of course, all the news organizations can cover this astounding disaster on their own. But behind the scenes, these journalists relied heavily on the communications departments, i.e. PR people, of the primary sources of hard information, FEMA, the National Hurricane Center, the National Weather Service, the Louisiana Governor's office, the National Guard, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, etc., to do their jobs.

I can assure you that the professional communicators at these and countless other organizations worked liked they never have before to help get the word out to consumers to save lives. My hat goes off to them.

In both The Times (via Reuters) and Journal today, we learn of Apple's planned alliance with Motorola and Cingular to introduce a mobile phone equipped with i-Tunes -- an i-Pod phone, if you will. I was curious to see a news conference flagged for Sept. 7 in San Francisco to make the announcement. WSJ SF tech scribe Nick Wingfield reported that "people familiar with the matter" spilled the beans.

Was this an intentional leak? Perhaps one of the gizmodo's of the world got wind of the news forcing the new triumverat's hand? Did yesterday's negative news that Apple has settled the class action suit over the i-Pod's less-than-advertised battery life have something to do with the release of the deal? No one from the three companies was talking.

Katrina's Wrath 

I'm late posting today. Maybe I should blame it on Katrina. After all, this fearsome lady not only consumed the Gulf, the city of New Orleans, and the states of Alabama and Mississippi for starters, but she consumed any space left in the country's news hole available for non-hurricane stories. Did the Shiites and Kurds send us Katrina to take our eyes off their constitutional maneuverings to disenfranchise Iraq's Sunni minority? How about Al Sharpton's many detractors who no doubt gloated at the submarining of the Rev. Al's best-laid publicity plans in Crawford, TX. KPMG is certainly happy at the likely short-lived media attention its half-billion dollar fine will receive.

In PR, so much depends on the day's weather.

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC has launched a preliminary inquiry into Pixar, the as-yet untainted animation studio run by Apple god Steve Jobs. It concerns the way in which the studio accounted for sales of its hit theatrical cartoon "The Incredibles." It comes six weeks after comparable news about its main competitor Dreamworks Animation.

As the Journal went about its reporting yesterday, Pixar pulled a disappearing act. It did not acknowledge the inquiry nor did it offer any comment to The Journal. (For what it's worth, nor did the SEC.) Did Pixar's communications counselors have the wherewithal to urge management to go public with the news at the time the company knew it? Perhaps they were thwarted by Pixar's general counsel or the sometimes thin-skinned Mr. Jobs?

Hey. It's August. Why ruin a few summer vacations?

I may be late to the dialogue on this story, but blogger and media pundit Jeff Jarvis's viral campaign against Dell Computer raises some very important questions for our industry. In fact, Business Week blogger Stephen Baker wonders today whether the tumult Jarvis has caused Dell falls in the domain of the customer service or media relations department at the world's largest seller of PCs.

Already, the PR pundits have looked at this every which way but up. Personally, I am more interested in the power the loudest voices in the blogosphere now find themselves with. On Sunday, another highly linked-to, i.e., influential, blogger Mark Cuban turned the tables on a journalist he didn't like by posting the raw content of his interview with that journalist.

Granted, Jeff Jarvis had some very legitimate complaints about Dell. But who's to say that other newly empowered bloggers won't abuse their lofty position in the blogosphere or use it for their own aggrandizement?

Whatever the personal or professional motivations of the few but growing number of online "influencers," PR practitioners need to be cognizant of the biggest bloggers' ability to impact reputations -- both online and off.

In a place where the fabulous and fabulously connected work, it's no small feat to manage the regular leakage of news and gossip. This is especially true at Conde Nast, home to glam glossies like Vanity Fair, Vogue, Glamour, Architectural Digest, GQ, and sister pubs W, The New Yorker, HG, etc. Case in point: the big news today on the defection of the highly regarded Joanne Lipman from the Wall Street Journal to Conde Nast to start a new business magazine. The news comes just prior to next month's launch of Lipman's baby, the Wall Street Journal's Weekend edition.

I was trying to figure out just how this story evolved. Based on the reports in today's Times and NY Post, it appears that Conde Nast played a back seat role to Dow Jones, which issued a news release focusing on Ms. Lipman's replacement. There didn't seem to be a news release from Conde Nast, so the company's PR honcho Mauri Perl comandeered CEO Charles Townsend to avail himself to reporters. (Conde Nast, a private company, does not post news releases on its site. Most of the publicizing is done at the magazine level.)

The take-away, much to Dow Jones's relief, honed in on Conde Nast's foray and less on the future vitality of the company's flagship newspaper's new weekend edition, which Ms. Lipman has agreed to head only through its Sept. 17 intro.

In another example of a client misleading a PR rep, the woman pictured in yesterday's posting on this blog recanted her highly publicized claim of having breast cancer. (Can silicone even succumb to this disease?) Anyway, trendy publicist Matthew Rich, whom I knew before he regained his eyesight, resigned Victoria Gotti as his client. Hey, it could've been worse. What if the Dapper Don's daughter decided to delegate double duty to defend her dreadfully delinquent descendants?

His reaction to the allegations couldn't be any clearer or more succinct: "I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs." (This sure beats Rafael's retort: "I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period.")

A link to the cycling legend's statement appears front and center on his website, which is a good thing. (Unfortunately, one must register to see what he has to say.) Nonetheless Lance Armstrong unequivocally and authoritatively decried the scurrilous charges early enough in the continuous news cycle (I couldn't resist) to achieve some balance.

In spite of his forceful denial, the inherent biases of the world's media leave much room for interpretation.

Here's France's Le Monde with its one-sided take on the allegation, while China's government news agency carried a story sans Lance's side. The Times of London was more sympatico as was just about every American outlet.

As effective as we can be in getting the word out, it is the filter of the fourth estate that determines what ultimately ends up in print, online or on the air.

I simply loved the image from today's New York Post that shows an arm dangling from the trunk of a NYC taxi cab next to a sticker promoting the new season of "The Sopranos." It juxtaposed nicely, and I'm sure coincidentally (no one's that clever!), with the testimony by Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa who described his escape from a NYC taxi cab in which Gotti henchman tried to kill him. (Even good fella Henry Hill made news today.)

For the Sopranos' promo, what a great and inspired PR stunt! One problem: it was conceived and executed by the ad agency for the hit HBO series -- BBDO. Huh? Since when do ad execs know how to do media-worthy publicity stunts? Well, folks, get used to it. More and more, client are charging their ad agencies to create creative that makes news. Take Burger King's "Subservient Chicken" site created by BK's Miami-based ad agency Crispin Porter Bogusky.

We as practitioners better get back on the schtick before we're subservient to the long-time purchasers of time and space.

It's no secret that the Mayor of New York holds a commanding -- some say insurmountable -- lead heading in to the September primaries and the November elections. The challenge for his challengers lies in creating news that catapults their candidates into the public eye -- not the C. Virginia Fields variety. After all, Mayor Mike, as commander, still holds the cards that control the city's news agenda.

So one has to give Fernando Ferrer's press person Jen Bluestein credit for enterprisingly capitalizing on the Mayor's media schedule yesterday, which featured him announcing a school essay contest. Ms. Bluestein created and released its own "school essay" humorously trumpeting the foibles of Mayor Mike.

This of course prompted Mayoral mouthpiece Stu Loeser to offer this sour note: "Although the winners of today's contest can write better than the Ferrer campaign, the Ferrer campaign wins first prize for doing the best job at embarrassing their candidate with this pathetic attack."

Stu, lighten up.

Several weeks ago, the folks at Royal Caribbean Cruise Line diverted a ship full of passengers from the warm waters of Bermuda to the cold waters of Nova Scotia. At the time, the executives at RCCL cited its prerogative to change the itinerary without questions if bad weather posed a threat. (A storm was brewing en route to Bermuda.)

One problem: the cruise line offered nothing in the way of compensation to the surprised and (underdressed) passengers, a couple of whom happened to be traveling with 30 of their friends and family to Bermuda to get married. The media got wind of it, and that's when the enterprising PR staff at the Bermuda Department of Tourism, along with Fairmont Hotels, stepped in to reap the public goodwill (and media exposure) by offering to pick up the tab. Smart move, keepers of Bermuda! You missed the boat, RCCL.

If you happened across today's Business section of Sunday New York Times, it would have been hard to miss the photo of Mark Cuban with his mouth agape over the headline "Mark Cuban is Mad (Again). But Why?" The piece, penned by The Times's star M&A scribe Andrew Ross Sorkin, pointedly questions Mr. Cuban's motivations for insisting that register.com merits a higher sale price.

Having corresponded once before with Mr. Cuban, I felt compelled to share my thoughts -- from a PR perspective -- on what recourse he might take to right whatever he felt was miscommunicated in the piece. Fifteen minutes after I sent him some suggestions -- to which he did not respond (directly) -- this posting appeared on his blog (and was subsequently picked up by the "AlwaysOn" Network).

I'm taken by Mr. Cuban's tact to publicly expose (with additional commentary) his e-mail "Q&A" with Mr. Sorkin. This transparency helped put in perspective his side of the story, which will no doubt gain traction in the blogosphere...and then the MSM. PR people take note.

Comedy Central's raunchy roast of Pamela Lee Anderson was an unqualified hit for the ascendant cable network, home to Jon Stewart. Not only did it produce some powerful ratings, but the column fodder and media coverage wouldn't stop. Congratulations to Tony Fox and the PR team at the comedy network.

Now for the dark side of that event: Courtney Love. Much of the scuttlebutt emanating from the special revolved around the bizarro behavior of Ms. Love during the roast. (One comic quipped: "How is it possible that Courtney Love looks worse than Kurt Cobain?") It's not that we're not used to seeing Ms. Love being forcibly restrained or in a state of utter incoherence from time to time, but who had the idea to put this wacko on camera throughout the special?

Now we learn that her charade of sobriety has come to a jarring end. Today she was ordered back to re-hab, and may even do jail time. If anyone has earned it, she has. There's no sympathy here. No one likes a liar. Just ask Ms. Wilbanks or Mr. Buttafuoco.

One of the most important tenets for good media relations involves putting ourselves in the shoes of the journalist from whom we hope to elicit interest in our clients' "news." Two terms describe the PR process: "pitching" and "placing." I never liked either (but who am I to talk given the name of this blog!) Nonetheless, the act of "pitching" sounds like a used car sales pitch, while "placing" a story implies that the "target" (another unfortunate word) journalist had little say in the story query's editorial fate. One "places" an ad, not a news story.

Hence, the release issued on PR Web this week promoting one "Mr. Pitch" and accompanied by a Joe Isuzu-type caricature simply rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, we all could use a hand in improving the quality of our journalistic overtures, but if I were on the receiving end of a pitch by Mr. Pitch, I'd balk.

The formula is simple: pay a few recognizable B-listers to turn up at a faux party, let the paparazzi and purveyors of gossip know about it, and pray that the ploy produces a product plug in the piece. It's done like this every night of the week in New York, L.A., London and elsewhere. And, yes, being compensated to serve as media bait is not above those whose film, TV and music careers leave something to be desired. Look at Paris Hilton. She recently boasted about her ability to command $300K just to show up at an event.

I doubt this is what the B-listers commanded at this week's underwear-promoting party in New York. (Though I suspect it was above scale given the nature of the product.) For better products, A-listers are sometimes known to succumb. I remember seeing Richard Dreyfuss at a party to promote flat panel TVs. (He received one as part of his deal.)

Kevin Dillon's skivvy appearance this week in New York surprised me given his current trajectory on the hit HBO series "Entourage," which ironically chronicles the lives of people who take ten percent off personal appearance fees.

Political PR is said to be in a category by and of itself. Still, those propagating for politicians and policies stumble just like the rest of us. When they do, the missteps frequently are trumpeted by a rapacious and competitive set of beat reporters anxious to pounce on their prey with the slightest provocation.

Case in point: the latest gaffe emanating from the Manhattan Borough President and Mayoral aspirant C. Virginia Fields' office. Last month, Ms. Fields achieved her share of notoriety for photoshopping an image in a campaign leaflet to make her appear as if she were surrounded by people of many colors. Yesterday, her press secretary mistakenly hit the send button revealing to 200 political reporters her edits to an impending media advisory. Geesh! Press secretary Kirsten Powers' quote: " "Something weird happened with my AOL."

The second noteworthy and likely fatal gaffe occurred at the outset of Westchester County DA Jeanine Pirro's campaign for Hillary Clinton's junior Senatorial seat from New York. It was decided that her felonious and philanderous husband should not attend the initial news conference announcing her candidacy, prompting the media to speculate on his status. This was followed by news of Mr. Pirro's offer to purchase a new car for his heretofore ignored "love child." What were they thinking? These kind of missteps rise to the level of the Democrats.

The Wall Street Journal reports today about Target Store's strategy to gain a branded foothold on the nation's college campuses. In so doing, they hope to convert those cramped campus cubicles into mini downscale design showcases.

Anyone who has toiled in the PR biz recognizes that it's very late in the game to capitalize on the planned back-to-school editorial sections, especially at the monthlies where those sections closed as schools closed for the summer. Of course, the local and national broadcast talk shows will allocate airtime for the pundits plugging practical products for the professorial set.

Still, the retail community's back-to-school efforts may rival holiday shopping for the paid and earned media weight we'll see over the next month -- all targeting the 13.4 billion the National Retail Federation predicts consumers will spend.

This story about the Bush Administration's objection to ICANN's establishment of a .xxx domain will only add fuel to the simmering debate that the non-profit IP address corporation is overly U.S.-centric, and should thus cede its control over the Internet to the United Nations.

Given all the U.N's woes these days, this is as likely to happen as Donald Trump being granted naming rights to its soon-to-be re-built headquarters.

A little retro seems to be the antidote for the travails of some stolid consumer brands. Today The AP reports that Cover Girl, which has about as much cache nowadays as Prince Matchabelli, has returned to its tried-and-true cover girl Christie Brinkley as the new/old face in its advertising. This news arrives on the heels of Chrysler's campaign that resurrects Lee Iacocca's spokeseman role in the much-reported TV spots for the ailing automaker. (The company seems better served with its edgy, some say sexist, campaign for Dodge.)

In any case, this is less about the persuasiveness of these two comfortable "celebrities" to sell product and more about the publicity pop that comes with their re-emergence on national TV. At least Cover Girl had the decency to tap Christie and not Cybill who's too busy making appearances for UBS...I mean IBS.

Bullseye. Tom Murphy of PR Opinions draws our attention to a nasty case of a client lying to his agency (and just about everyone else). He rightly credits online-pr's Jim Horton for first noticing the breach. There is only one recourse here for the agency: resign the account and hope you are covered for any potential liabilty!

The title of this posting sounds like one of those annoying radio ads for 1-800-Mattres ("leave off the last S for savings"). It may be radio, but the folks at Sirius are hoping its newest "celebrity" will get listeners out of bed. Yesterday they announced that B-lister fitness nut Richard Simmons will join wacko radio jock Howard Stern on the burgeoning company's satellite dial. Maybe I'm missing something, but does Richard Simmons enjoy the same press-worthy notoriety as his fellow Sirius broadcasters Martha and Howard?

When will it ever end? Granted, the editorial thrust of some of American Media's publications, e.g., Weekly World News and The National Enquirer, leaves the door open for controversy and litigation. But nary a week goes by without some unsavory AMI headline hitting the mainstream media. (Think Anthrax, Ugliest Person list, Bonnie Fuller, Arnold, etc.)

Today's L.A. Times reports on hush money paid by AMI to a woman who had an affair with the future Governor of California. At the time, the company was negotiating with Mr. Schwarzenegger to become a paid consultant to its stable of muscle/fitness mags - a business relationship that exploded in the media last month.

As a PR guy, I have considerable empathy for the company's in-house mouthpiece Stu Zakim. Stu, so much for having a restful summer!

My prediction: the new revelations about AMI CEO David Pecker's relationship with The Terminator's relationship may very well lead to his own termination.

Like the PR industry, our brethren on the other side of the marketing aisle also are wrestling with various issues when it comes to plying their trade in the blogosphere. PR blogging pundits eagerly cite the do's and don't's of "pitching" stories to blogs, while AdAge.com yesterday reported on the consternation among advertisers over the safety of the blogging environment.

As both camps sort out how best to gain a foothold in the much-ballyhooed blogosphere, maybe someone should take a step back and focus on what that presence yields in terms of ROI? If not CPM, then what? Cache?

The best PR promotions are simple and easy to communicate. The most effective tie directly back to the core message. Take for instance today's news about an AOL sweepstakes wherein winners can walk away with a fully-loaded Hummer 2, gold bars worth 20G's or cash. The "prizes" are the spoils AOL won in a lawsuit against a prolific 19-year-old spammer in New Hampshire. It's not the first time AOL has used its legal gains to promote its anti-spamming efforts. In 2004, the company offered up a Porsche Boxster in a similar PR scheme.

Does anyone actually believe that Donald Trump will pen his own blog, as CMP's TechWeb reports today? Mark Cuban and Richard Branson, sure, but The Donald? If his real intention here is to be seen as au courant, he might first consider changing his do.

Magazine publicity is a high art. The glossy monthly in-house publicists are charged with garnering advance buzz to coincide with their magazine's appearance on the newsstands. The New York Post and one of the big three celeb shows -- "ET," "Access" or "Extra" -- typically oblige. Few do it as well as the bunch at Advance/Conde Nast, whose titles include Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, GQ, Architectural Digest...

So eyebrows must have been raised when (yet another) low-life paparrazi managed to commandeer and offer to the highest bidder scanned pages from an advance copy of the new Vanity Fair featuring Jennifer Aniston-tells-all on the cover. I guess that throws a monkey wrench into the best-laid PR plans, or does it?

Most of us think of desert, dust, and destruction when they think of the Gaza Strip. The phrase "Israeli settlement" also conjures up an image of primitive makeshift housing for recalcitrant Jewish militants. As the "settlers" prepare to leave their homes, this story about surfing off the Gaza coast caught my eye. It paints a picture of tranquil modernity -- an image that went missing in the debate to depopulate the Jewish settlers from this area.

The Israeli government, for whatever reasons, never succeeded in using the power of images to put in proper perspective what life for these settlers really looked like. We all know how dehumanizing life for the Palestinians was since scenes of mayhem tended to dominate the nightly news. I just wonder if there was another side to this story that never adequately pierced the public's consciousness.

It may be heresy coming from a PR pro, but I am disheartened by the news that the impending American version of Britain's OK Magazine may pay Michael Jackson $2 million for an "exclusive." My distaste has less to do with Mr. Jackson's guilt or innocence, and everything to do with the notion of pay-for-play masquerading as journalism. It has Armstrong Williams written all over it, but the payola is flowing in the opposite direction.

Ketchum bought (Williams), while Jackson sold -- each in an attempt to advocate in a controlled "editorial context." Jackson's handlers are trading on his celebrity to gain that control (though it helped that OK is willing to sell its journalistic soul to make a big splash on these shores. )

If OK's single-copy sales go as expected, then both enterprises will find themselves in the same leaky boat. Unfortunately, OK's reputation will likely remain unscathed, which is more than I can say for Williams'.

(I wonder if OK's deal with the Jackson camp precludes the magazine from reporting on the dissenting juror's book deals?)

If blogs posed such a grave danger to the future of mainstream media, why do bloggers continue to measure their success by their ability to influence the old media they hope to displace? I don't mean to undermine the potency of blogs to effect change, but are they more than just catalysts for traditional media?

I wouldn't be surprised if it were Britney's husband who pulled the trigger on the BB gun that downed a paparazzo staking out the pregnant couple's baby shower in Malibu. This story typically wouldn't have amounted to much, but given the notoriety celeb photogs have engendered since Diana's death, and the intrigue over who's really guilty here, the story will likely live on in the genre of celebrity justice. I quote the officer on the scene: "Because of the media attention, we'll probably put this on the front burner..."

Of course, the pop queen disavowed through her publicist any knowledge of the shooting: "Britney didn't know anything about it. She had nothing to do with it," her spokeswoman Nicole King said. Isn't that what Lil' Kim said?

Shame on you Google director of public relations David Krane for not standing up to the apparently thin-skinned powers-that-be at the (still ascendant) search engine Goliath. New York Times scribe Saul Hansell today reports that Google will not answer CNET's reporters' queries about the company until July 2006.

It seems that a CNET reporter's Google search of company CEO Eric Schmidt revealed some relatively innocuous, but very accessible personal information the company did not want to see published. If cutting off CNET was Mr. Krane's recommendation as a means to exact revenge on an enterprising reporter, then I suggest Mr. Krane head back to Media Relations 101 class.

In crises, especially those involving litigation, defense lawyers invariably advise their high-paying clients to clam up in the court of public opinion. The thinking goes that something published or aired today could regrettably surface during the trial.

Lately, however, I've observed a different tactic being played out by the prominent and powerful. It is outright defiance. Richards Scrushy and Grasso come to mind with their aggressive and very public pronouncements designed to debilitate their detractors. Scrushy got off, and Grasso seems to be headed toward a settlement with Elliott. AIG's Maurice Greenberg defiantly chimed in yesterday, and now the Indonesian head of the world's largest gold mining company Newmont publicly bristled at government prosecutors hoping to convict him for polluting Buyat Bay. (Doesn't Indonesia have more pressing issues on on its plate???)

Litigation PR is nothing new. It's the recent (and apparently successful) public aggressiveness by high profile defendants that intrigues...Colonel Jessup notwithstanding.

I'm still trying to figure this one out. While most movies in production have on the set "unit publicists" who draft the production notes, manage unit and "special" photographers and generally garner advance word of mouth, the makers of "The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard, have placed a veil, or should I say shroud of secrecy over the film's production. (Even Woody Allen would be impressed.)

Now what perplexes me is why. Some say the film's plot -- a cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church of Jesus' alleged marriage to Mary Magdalene -- is too incendiary. But ruffling a few feathers certainly didn't stop Mel Gibson from doing everything he could to generate advance buzz for his most incendiary film. This included seeking and allegedly securing a vague supporting sound bite from the late Pope prior to release. The advance controversy led to boffo box office, and a very rich Gibson.

Are today's religious nuts so nuts that they would bring harm to those they believe are committing blasphemy? Maybe Dan Brown's work of fiction(?) was so mainstream that the marketers of his film don't feel they need any advance buzz. It's funny how those who were so passionate about The Passion can give it, but apparently not take it.

I can't keep track of all the machinations surrounding the resuscitation of Ms. Martha. I really thought she was poised to derail her ride back up to respectability with her public whining over the ankle bracelet. Or the way she flaunted her time-served in a Vanity Fair cover story. (She's already traded on her infamy for personal profitability.)

But a commercial for her new cable show, "Martha," carefully constructs an image depicting her as fallible. One sequence has her breaking a vase, which is soooo not Martha. Now I hear the show wants to fill the audience will all Marthas. Now that's more her MO!

I never liked her Mom, and have less tolerance for Hollywood ditz Kate Hudson (pictured at left). She's skedded to appear on Jay Leno tonight so see for yourself how vapid this stereotypical blonde really is. You don't believe me? Look at the items in today's NY Post and yesterday's The Scoop column on MNSBC.com. (No amount of PR can gloss over this.)

Compare her to Lara Spencer, another blonde whom I happen to adore for her natural and refreshing effervescence. I guess it's an east coast west coast thing for me.

The folks at H.R. Block are no doubt hoping this story will be short-lived. It's reminiscent of the recent gaffe at Citigroup wherein the bank's heavily weighted ad campaign on identity theft took a black eye with news of a massive security breach among its credit card holders. The campaign was put on hold for a few weeks. Mr. Block, take notice.

I realize that three percent of a half-a-mill is not insignificant, but in the scheme of things, it may cost Harvard president Larry Summers his job. Yesterday's resignation of Conrad Harper, a prominent African-American member of the Harvard Corporation, may be the tipping point that ends Mr. Summers' troubled tenure at the helm of America's most famous university. In his resignation letter, Mr. Harper cited Mr. Summers' three percent pay raise as one of the reasons for his continued dissatisfaction with Harvard's leader.

Clearly, Mr. Summers is sufficiently savvy to realize the impact a salary increase would have on his public posture after the scandalous events of the last year. Or is he? At the risk of playing Monday morning quarterback, he should have publicly rejected any salary increase to fortify his standing with the university. Let's see what his fate holds now.

In a story reminiscent of the case-study making 1994 crisis faced by Intel Corp., the folks at Cisco Systems are battling the growing noise of a security flaw with its software that controls 60% of Internet traffic. Like Intel initially, Cisco is seeking to downplay the problem. However, as the noise migrates in to the mainstream media, Cisco will be forced to act.

It wasn't until the buzz in chat rooms and user groups (remember those?) bubbled onto the pages of EE Times and cable waves in a televised report by the late CNN Tech reporter Steve Young that prompted Andy Grove to take decisive action, effectively ending the crisis. BTW, did you see Joe Nocera's interview with Mr. Grove in Saturday's New York Times? A good read. A fascinating man.

The Atkins Diet works. But like the ebb and flow of news, too much of a good thing can lead to too much of a bad thing (Newton's third law). The death knell for Atkins, in the form of a bankruptcy filing, demonstrates the cyclical nature of news. The higher you rise, the lower you fall. Had Atkins Nutritionals approached the public positioning of its weight loss method in a more measured way -- as opposed to feeding the hype -- I suspect it would not find itself in its current predicament.

Many PR agencies measure their success by the quantity of press coverage they garner for their clients. Few consider how too much media coverage can produce the opposite effect over the long run, as evidenced by Atkins' stunning fall from grace. The slow but steady tortoise always beats the hare. Pass the bacon.