The Flack

As The New York Times moves to digitize its archive back to 1852 and make it freely available to TimesSelect subscribers, the New York Post has taken quite the opposite tact. The NYC tabloid has just sent all of its pre-1998 news clippings into storage purgatory in the sub-basement of its Sixth Avenue headquarters -- in effect rendering them completely inaccessible.

The move was ordered by one of the paper's digital czars who (mistakenly) felt the printed history was expendable, if not just clutter. The paper's ink-stained reporting staff is not too pleased.

This means that the many bold-faced names who had woken up one morning to discover their ceremonious names unceremoniously splashed onto "Page Six" can breathe a sigh of relief. Their past sins -- at least those prior to '98 -- are now literally tombstoned.

newspaper digital media journalism

The audacious decision earlier this month by Metropolitan Museum Director Philippe de Montebello to repatriate several pieces of looted Hellenstic art to the Italian government garnered global headlines and many positive accolades. (The Met's communications chief Harold Holzer should have been pleased.)

A piece in today's New York Times offers additional insights into Mr. de Montebello's thinking behind this remarkable decision.

"...he became motivated to begin negotiating with the Italian government for the return of the objects only when he concluded that the issue would not go away. 'I began to reflect: What's the best way out?' he said."

Does this mean that if the public rumblings, played out in the news media -- weren't so loud, he would have opted to keep the vase? Perhaps the standing ovation he received by his fellow museum heads made the decision less painful.

His decision of course has tremendous implications for museums the world over. A couple of years ago I had a chance to meet with the Greek Minister of Culture who sought to finally have the sculptures , stripped from atop The Parthenon by Lord Elgin ("The Elgin Marbles"), repatriated to his country after two centuries of trying. This is but one of a myriad other examples of museums holding priceless antiquities whose provenance is dubious at best. Will Mr. de Montebello's decision open the flood gates to their owners' claims?

I would like to think that Mr. de Montebello made the decision to repatriate because it was the right thing to do, and not because it was "the best way out."

PR art media crisis management public relations

Back from holiday where I had a chance to sink my teeth into Scoble and Israel's Naked Conversations -- a most worthwhile read for anyone toiling in our profession. I don't buy into all the disintermediation stuff and the perspective tends to skew to Silicon Valley PR, but the blogging case studies have tremendous and undeniable value for PR pros.

I was especially enamored with the melding of e-commerce and blogs, and the subsequent boost in sales that blogging produced (versus static websites). And I agree that those wedded to commanding-and-controlling the message in the age of dialogue are in for a very rude awakening. I hope to post more on the book at a later date.

Before I left, I came across a posting by John Cass that I found incredulous. It concerned the 3rd Annual International PR Conference to be held in Iran! Here's a link to last year's event. Is this for real? Are bona fide PR practitioners actually heading to Tehran for this event in November?

If so, I am shocked and call for a boycott by our profession. Not only has Iran become a pariah state, but I need not tell you about its Holocaust-denying, terrorist-supporting, unstable and dangerous president whose frequent public pronouncements send shutters throughout the civilized world.

IPRA, PRSA, and all the other "representative" organizations should take a firm stand against supporting this event or any other event this radical government sponsors.

PR public relations Iran

A week or so ago, I received an e-mail from my son's college announcing the results of an exhaustive study, speerheaded by the college president, to address, among other things, what he and others concluded to be the inequitable access by smart, but economically disadvantaged students to an education at the nation's most selective colleges and universities.

I read the report and was taken by its passion and the profound changes it portended if administered. I filed it away and soon forgot about it.

If anyone had questions about the virility of the mainstream media to raise public consciousness and effect change, the new issue of Business Week contains a special report on this bold and controversial initiative sought by Amherst College president Tony Marx. The school's unofficial community website The Daily Jolt is abuzz with animated, if not overly personal debate, and soon students, faculty and administrators from the nation's higher education arena undoubtedly will join the fray.

Could this issue have caught fire to the degree it has and will without Business Week serving as "the tipping point?" What's even more astounding to me is that a search today (Sunday) for Amherst College on Technorati yields not a single posting on this incendiary debate. Perhaps college students are too busy to blog, and what does this mean for blogging's next generation? Whatever the future holds, I know not to write-off the mainstream media just yet.

higher education affirmative action mainstream media public relations

I will be on family holiday this week. I'm told I will have Internet access, but the connection speeds may not be conducive to posting. I'll try.

PH

Invariably, the notion of the media "exclusive" surfaces at every PR seminar or journalist roundtable attended by PR practitioners. When should they be offered and whom do you [media person] consider as your competitors?

I have written frequently over the years about the double-edged sword awaiting exclusive-givers, but this was prior to the democratization of the media wherein anyone's a publisher whose work can take root and multiply in the global media ecosystem.

Bob Scoble raised the issue again this past week, and more or less called for the dissolution of the PR practice of offering exclusives.

"Are we seeing the death of the exclusive? I hope so. That's what I'm fighting for. The 'A- list' should have access to info as soon as the 'Z-list' does."

Hooray! I applaud the Scobleizer. Wouldn't it be great and make our lives so much easier to treat all media - mainstream and citizen types -- on a level playing field when it comes to doling out news? It is, after all, the logical extension of "Reg FD" wherein journalists, analysts and now citizens are treated equitably by newsmakers.

In fact, I always have strongly advised PR pros to offer their clients' news concurrently to all media for fear of alienating some AP reporter or havng to endure the ire of a ticked-off Wall Street Journal writer who just read your client's news...exclusively in Business Week.

However noble the Scoble notion, there's one small, and intractable problem: many top tier journalists insist on exclusives from newsmakers (and their PR reps). If "Today" has a guest in-studio, GMA won't take him. If The Times ad columnist Stuart Elliott reports on a new campaign, don't expect The Journal's Brian Steinberg or USA Today's Theresa Howard to follow.

In fact, it's common for PR practitioners to be told point blank by "star" reporters that unless it's an exclusive -- no matter how newsworthy the pitch -- their outlets simply won't report the story.

So here we are, PR people, caught between a rock and a hard place. Do we offer the exclusive, which gives the news more allure and recipient journalists more cache with their editors -- or announce the news simultaneously to the world? And in announcing to the A and Z lists, what's the most efficacious means for doing so?

Keep in mind that many A-list bloggers are as enamored with (and insistent upon) the exclusive as their dead tree counterparts. Or maybe Denton and Calacanis should not be considered typical bloggers? I don't subscribe to the notion that the news release is dead, however. It just looks and behaves differently than in the past.

PR public relations media journalism

Perusing today's headlines, it's hard to ignore the very public mea culpas from the Vice President and Head of Homeland Security. By accepting full blame for what happened in the killing fields of Texas and the drowning pool of Louisiana, respectively, both expect to put their mounting media troubles behind them.

In a related story from the business world, the CEO of electronics retailer Radio Shack also blared onto today's business pages by accepting blame for lying about having two college degrees. "I clearly misstated my academic record and the responsibility for these misstatements is mine alone."

Can a "buck stops here" strategy take the wind out of the sails of a Category 4 crisis? Other than the astonishing revelation that Michael Chertoff, our nation's crisis manager-in-chief, does not use e-mail, I'm beginning to think that these public pronouncements will achieve their desired goals -- at least for the Veep and Secretary. (Of course, this is barring the untimely demise of Mr. Cheney's "friend.")

The constant flow of news, a fickle media consumer, and the absence of any real checks and balances will in effect displace most Beltway crises these days. As for Radio Shack, the jury is still out. It is a company that likely subscribes to both e-mail and good corporate governance.

PR politics media crisis management public relations Cheney Chertoff corporate governance

Today's New York Times profile of CNN mainstay Lou Dobbs touches upon a subject that strikes at the heart of how public perceptions are formed. The piece looks at Mr. Dobbs's evolution from a straight business journalist to an opinionated quasi-news personality. What does it mean for PR practitioners?

Sure, we don't expect "Meet the Press," "Bill O'Reilly" and "Jon Stewart" to abide by the rules taught in the nation's J-schools. These are biased commentators whose histrionics drive ratings (and whose bosses encourage them to do so). They are in a different category from "World News Tonight," "Headline News" or the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Or are they?

I wonder if the American people recognize the difference between news and news commentary? Do viewers of "The O'Reilly Factor," though entertained, realize that he is not a broadcast news journalist, i.e., he won't be winning a duPont-Columbia Award anytime soon.

"What Dobbs is doing falls in the sort of the tradition of reportorial journalistic advocacy," said Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "It may not be straight reporting in the classical sense, but it certainly falls in the tradition of point-of-view journalism."

From a PR perspective, the advent of commentary posing as news does make it easier to determine who's akin and who's against a client's views.

"People across the country tune in to Lou Dobbs because they know their views on immigration will be presented," said Rosemary Jenks, director of governmental relations at NumbersUSA, a policy group that favors reducing immigration. "He is a hero to a lot of people."

Heretofore, PR pros just strived to get a fair shake, to achieve some semblance of balance. Today they can bypass "Nightline" altogether in favor of the growing number of "point-of-view journalists" residing within TV news divisions. (I haven't even mentioned the myriad "point-of-view" bloggers.)

When this administration wants to mount a full court press on public opinion, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out which outlets will be the most receptive, i.e., less hampered by the tenets of good journalism.

Perhaps TV news executives should look to their print counterparts, which clearly differentiate their opinion pages from their news holes? These execs could start by extricating this brand of TV programming from their news divisions and place them in a new "commentary" category that falls somewhere between news and entertainment.

PR public relations media journalism

Few people outside of New York will have a chance to read with any regularity the feisty right-of-center New York Sun newspaper. But PR afficionados everywhere will not want to miss PR Week's "most influential PR person of the century" Harold Burson as profiled on the day before his 85th birthday.

Over lunch at The Four Seasons , the Sun reporter, to his credit, gave the remarkably lucid and always insightful Mr. Burson complete latitude to reflect on his career, the global firm he built, and the striking technological and sociological changes he has witnessed during his lifetime.

Having spent more than a decade in his employ, I can report that the classical music wafting from his 1930's Cathedral radio, his big Stickley rocking chair, and the promise of his sagacity, rarely failed to beckon as a safe and inspiring haven for me and countless others.

The number of PR pundits in the blogosphere may be rapidly multiplying, but let's not lose sight of those who codified the fundamentals on which our industry was built...and still very much relies. Happy birthday, Harold. 

PR public relations

The New York Times today reports on the front page of its national section (not to be confused with its front page) an effort in Ohio to reverse some of the legal gains made by the Intelligent Design crowd.

The article was accompanied by a pro-science op-ed written in response to the much-publicized efforts of a youthful NASA PR guy who tried to force his non-intelligent ideologies on one of the more intelligent scientists working at the national space agency.

Separately, a Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist turned filmmaker recently screened his new documentary called "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution - Intelligent Design Circus" that chronicles the foibles of the debate that's taking place today -- some four score after the Scopes Monkey Trial.

His conclusions: intelligent design is making greater strides because its supporters are "...energetic, likeable people who compensate for their shaky theory's shortcomings through organization, personal appeal, and money." They also are "...backed by media-savvy, well-financed organizations like the Discovery Institute that aren't afraid to hire high-powered public relations firms to advance their cause."

"Scientists, on the other hand, squander their factual edge through indifference and poor communication skills." Ahhh. Where are the media trainers when we need them? Sure sounds like the Dems and Republicans.

PR public relations
politics intelligent design Flock of the Dodos

"Time keeps mum on new Web site" is the headline atop Brian Steinberg's Wall Street Journal piece today publicizing "Office Pirates," the stalwart magazine publisher's new lad-driven website under development. It arrived with a tantalizing logo and inducement (at left and above), but with "no comments" all around from its masters. Why the mum?

"...details are scarce because in the online world, building buzz through traditional marketing is not only ineffective, it could scuttle the word-of-mouth appeal."

Hey! What do you call a feature in The Wall Street Journal? Buzz marketing? This catalytic media placement is as "traditional" as it gets. It prompted one of my favorite e-newsletters paidcontent.org to key in on the story, further fueling the site's prospects for building word-of-mouth.

My point? There's a tremendous fascination with viral and WOM. I just wonder whether the secret recipe holds much spice without mainstream media coming on board to feed the frenzy. And which comes first: online or offline, the chicken or the egg? Would subservient chicken have garnered as much awareness and as many accolades without the MSM's attention? I'm not so sure.

PR word-of-mouth media public relations

I really liked the fizz in Coke's PR strategy to enlist college students to blog about the Winter Olympics. That was, of course, until I read company spokesperson Philipp Bodzenta's de-carbonating quote:

"They understand they we're looking for the positive side of the Olympics. They are part of the PR team, but they are not Coke employees."

Go forth and blog...but blog happy is the order here.

I still think it's a good idea for Coke to have reached in to its core constituency to get the word out on its seven (if not eight) figure marketing investment. But did the company really have to add Splenda to the mix to keep its image in good taste? This kind of controlling directive not only flies in the face of blog-essence, but it probably wasn't even necessary.

Embedding a reporter in the front row of a major news event typically provides sufficient incentive to temper the negative. The military shock and awed the media so much in Iraq that those early first-person accounts bare little resemblance to what we now is the nasty reality of this war. What about the scores of back-of-the-book reporters who accept the wine and dine junkets to hear Tom or Jennifer's precious words of wisdom before filing their fawning reports? It's not exactly a quid pro quo, or is it?

The point of course is that these college-aged bloggers would have likely stayed on script without Coke's directive to "look for the positive side." It's most unlikely they would have tattled on Bode downing beers at midnight before his (real and figurative) downhill. But what if they had????

PR weblogs journalism public relations Torino Coca-Cola

Poor NASA public affairs specialist George Deutsch. When The New York Times outed him for trying to impose his personal political beliefs (and those of his superiors' superior) on a prominent scientist at NASA, the 24-year-old former Bush campaign worker from Texas was forced to resign under a dark cloud.

"We are both Christians, and I was sharing with him my personal opinions on the Big Bang theory versus intelligent design," Mr. Deutsch wrote to The Times.

A pointed Times editorial exposing Mr. Deutsch's dubious academic credentials accompanied his resignation. Not content with the qualitative analysis of the media coverage, Mr. Deutsch, another example of an inexperienced idealogue put in a position of influence by this administration, decided to put back on his PR hat to have his side of the story heard.

Naturally, he returned to his almost alma mater and booked himself on a politically sympatico talk radio station, home to those scions of objective journalism -- Sean, Rush and Laura.

"I have never been told to censor science, to squelch anything or to insert religion into any issue," he told the radio reporter, Brian Cain.

Hey look, why talk to NPR when you can tell your story completely unfettered by the facts? He did avail himself to The Times, which allotted him the space he sought, and then some (he hadn't sought) for others less sympathetic to his point of view: 'After seeing a transcript of some of the criticisms, Dr. Hansen said, "This is so wacky that it deserves little response."'

PR journalism
politics NASA

Several potentially explosive stories caught my eye this week. All concern insidious and illegal practices taking place under the hoods of three otherwise revered enterprises. If not resolved, all can cause considerable damage to the reputations (and bottom lines) of these enterprises. All will require a deft touch in the PR department to put the blight in their rear view mirrors.

I'm talking about eBay, MySpace.com, and craigslist.

Last week, Tiffany sued eBay for selling and profiting from the sale of counterfeit goods. This week, the Attorney General of Connecticut opened an investigation into MySpace.com for allegedly serving as a haven for sexual predators. And today, craigslist was sued for hosting real estate classifieds that violate the Federal Fair Housing Act.

How much responsibilty should these companies take for policing the community-created content that resides on their respective sites/marketplaces? If it is ruled that they are, wouldn't the scale of such an undertaking make it virtually impossible, and most certainly unprofitable, to effect? Here's a smattering of their public comments thus far:

An eBay spokesperson: "We never take possession of the goods sold through eBay, and we don't have any expertise. We're not clothing experts. We're not car experts, and we're not jewelry experts. We're experts at building a marketplace and bringing buyers and sellers together."

A prepared statement from MySpace.com: "When public-safety issues are brought to the company's attention, the company cooperates directly with local, state and federal law enforcement."

And via email from craigslist: "Discriminatory ads on craigslist are actually exceedingly rare." He cited users' vigilance in flagging such ads for removal from the site, as well as the company's recently enhanced efforts to link fair housing information to housing-related postings. In addition, he wrote, "the law is pretty clear to the effect that sites like craigslist cannot be held legally liable for the content of postings submitted by end users."

These stories have extraordinary implications. All three companies are caught in a balancing act. They must first acknowledge their problems, figure out how to effectively resolve them in a scalable way, while remaining cognizant of how adverse media attention can taint their brands, let alone the vitality and growth of their respective communities.

PR public relations
eBay MySpace craigslist crisis management

Super Size Me has faded into a distant memory. Public awareness of the health perils of fast food spurred by that film and the indefatigable Michael Jacobson has all but dissipated. Fast food is hot again.

-- McDonalds, reporting its best monthly sales in two years, chose to line its trays with nutrition information rather than fulfill its promise to eliminate trans-fat laden fries.

-- In fact, the company just revealed that its fries have a significantly greater trans-fat content than believed.

-- Burger King's private investors, emboldened by their edgy new ad agency and big-headed mascot, will cash out big time in early spring.

-- A new study debunks the long-held notion that lowering fat intake reduces certain types of cancer in women.

Sixty-four percent of adult Americans (about 127 million) are categorized as being overweight or obese. Yet the epidemic has disappeared from the main media menu. Was it the PR maneuverings of the QSRs that so successfully protected their franchises? Has fast food's success on The Street trumped the public good? Could we be seeing the natural counteraction to the media saturation of Super Size Me?

From a McDonalds spokesperson: "It is important to note that McDonald's menu has a wide range of choice and variety, with an array of portion sizes, including three options with french fries: small, medium and large." You choose.

PR public relations fast food trans-fat

The public (mis)perception of public relations continues to affect the future vitality of the profession. I decided to pen this blog to provide a small window into how modern PR is practiced and share some of the ethical considerations we face as an industry. Even so, understanding of what we do as a profession remains a mystery.

The Tribune Company's Sun-Sentinel today reports on the community uproar that ensued following the proposed hiring of a respected New York PR firm to help the scandal-plagued city of Lake Worth "get its message clearly and accurately to the public." Sound reasonable. If an enterprise or institution wants to open its doors to its constituents, it makes perfect sense to bring in a professional public relations firm to help it do so.

In rejecting the plan, one Lake Worth councilwoman summed it up this way: "There's a problem, but I don't think the media is the problem. They only print what we say and how we act. The problem is us."

Now there's the first phase of the would-be PR plan: accepting blame.

media PR public relations

SEO or search engine optimization, not to be confused with SEM or search engine marketing, has been in the digitally savvy PR person's toolbox from the earliest days of Google dominance. I mean who hasn't heard of meta tagging and link relevancy?

The advent of these two acronyms has spawned an entire industry straddling PR, advertising, DM and web design. What's less familiar to rank and file PR practitioners are Google's "terms of service" (TOS), and the consequences for running afoul of them.

Yesterday we learned that the maker of your 3, 5 and 7 Series didn't exactly play by the SEO rules. It embedded the German word for "used cars" 42 times on its home page to elevate its unpaid SE ranking, and thus drive BMW buyer traffic to its site. As a result, the omnipotent rulemaker doled out the punishment: the German automaker was banished to the results rankings basement, a fate that far exceeds fender-bender status.

Now, I wonder which company will have its reputation more adversely de-optimized: Google's, for its heavy-handedness, or BMW's, for its digital faux pas?

PR automobile
BMW Google public relations SEO

 
Variety has a telling piece that attempts to make sense of how PR pros from the top entertainment/media companies are grappling with the explosion of media outlets and, consequently, the loss of message control.

The piece makes it clear that there isn't a boilerplate answer for how best to manage the (inward and outward) flow of corporate information today. The modern rules of engagement have necessitated a re-thinking of the practices we have cited in this weblog and others. Here is some of what they had to say:

Warner Bros. Entertainment exec VP of communications Susan Fleishman: "The news cycle is a nanosecond." "That can be difficult."

Chris Ender, CBS' senior VP for communications: "No matter how many outlets are out there, one of the basic principles of P.R. still applies: If you don't tell your story, someone else will."

"CBS exec VP Gil Schwartz: "Certainly there is a lot more ferment and people crawling all over the subject (of media), but in our business, which is communication, that is a boon. If you have got a great company with a great story, you have more places to tell it."

Allan Mayer, head of the entertainment division at the crisis management PR firm Sitrick & Co: "The general dilemma studios face is that they have a lot of different interests, all of which need to be considered before they decide to enter a debate," says .

Time Warner, EVP, corporate communications Ed Adler: "Our story is how our businesses work better together" than split. We've been telling our story as people throw charges at the company."

And, of course, the piece has its share of non-attributables:

One executive: "That was a seminal moment in corporate communications for all of us. It wasn't just about us telling our good stories anymore. We didn't get to decide what we wanted to talk about."

A person familiar with the [Dreamworks] situation: "...but GE brass wasn't all that concerned about "the sort of hothouse atmosphere that causes the gossip and positioning." "GE does deals of this size and more all the time" and doesn't generally comment unless, and until, they are done." "There was no strategic benefit to responding."

The writers cited how Apple and Pixar's stealthy approach to public relations has proven successful, but we all know that stealthiness can only take you so far, as noted in the previous post
PR entertainment public relations media

Steve Rubel this week links to the following post with his usual aplomb: "I guarantee this will be on the front page of digg, memorandum and del.icio.us in no time." The thoughtful diatribe from Jackwhispers takes apart the seemingly invincible Steve Jobs.

Are we seeing the seeds of a Newtonian backlash against Apple, i.e. "Every action has...?" This morning, on the heels of this non-conforming take on Apple, The New York Times's Joe Nocera dresses down the company with the same zeal recently accorded Dell by citizen journalist Jeff Jarvis .

While Apple basks in the luminescence of its iPod screen, it seems the company is precarious poised to take a fall. Newton doesn't discriminate. He also works in both directions. Even Bode Miller, who recently hit rock bottom in the PR department, is positioned to rise again...maybe even to new heights. (I call it the Paris Hilton strategy. Misbehave. Make headlines. Get famous, then rich.) Many had written off Mariah Carey. This week she received eight Grammy nominations. My prediction: she'll win most.

For enterprises, there are countless cases of once high flying and presumed immortal companies that ultimately fell from grace for drinking too much of their own Kool-Aid.

As PR practitioners, we need to more fully understand (and anticipate) the inevitable forces that can/will topple an enterprise following a prolonged stay in the adulatory spotlight. Arrogance doesn't help, notes Mr. Nocera:

"At this particular moment, of course, Apple is special, and it can get away with being arrogant. It has a product that everyone wants, and for which there is no serious competition.

A final note: You may have noticed there is no Apple spokesman defending the iPod or Apple's customer support in this column. When I called Apple, wanting to know, among other things, how long Apple believes an iPod should last, I got a nice young woman from the P.R. department. She said she'd try to find someone at the company to talk to me. That was on Wednesday.

I'm still waiting."

PR Apple public relations

I'm beginning to like Campbell Robertson, but am not so sure he likes us. He's certainly an improvement over Joyce Wadler, his predecessor helming the "Bold Face Names" column in The New York Times. Ms. Wadler, whom I knew from her kinder, gentler days at The Washington Post, was her snarkiest when it came to reporting on the foibles of celebrity publicists. (Who could blame her?)

Mr. Robertson, on the other hand, has a tad more civility in his tone, which is not to say he has more tolerance for publicists. His item today describes a canned publicity event: the press breakfast for the opening of a new maternity store in Manhattan.

It included one ingredient that made it column-worthy: a celebrity by the name of Mira Sorvino. There was a soap opera star on hand, but it's doubtful she was any sort of media magnet. Then, of course, the requisite ice sculpture of a pregnant woman, melting in the mild New York winter. And finally, let's not forget the "hundreds" of icy pregnant women lined up around the block waiting for the store to open. Between Mira and the preggos, TV and photo assignment editors took the bait.

Mr. Robertson reported one missing ingredient: coffee.

'"Pregnant women don't drink coffee," a bubbly publicist explained. After an hour we were escorted downstairs to a room where Ms. Sorvino — we would like the publicist to know — had just sent someone to Starbucks for a large mocha latte, not too sweet. She was working on a plate of muffins.'

media celebrity PR public relations

How would you like to have Harvey Weinstein as your client? Rather than blame his agency - the orange-roofed International House of Publicity -- for its inability to land Dame Judy Dench on one of two network morning shows and "The View," he instead charged those programs with age discrimination. There go the firm's relationships!

Maybe I'm out of the mainstream, but "Mrs. Henderson Presents," the film to which the newly Oscar-nominated Ms. Dench's hopeful TV appearances was pegged, didn't exactly do boffo box office. In its first two months of release, it earned a little over $2 million. Could that have had something to do with these programs' tepid interest?

Confronted with Mr. Weinstein's allegations, the three shows had widely divergent responses. The top-rated morning show NBC "Today" declined to comment, "GMA" released this innocuous statement: "Good Morning America welcomes a wide array of guests to the program each and every day. Judi Dench is a screen legend," and "The View" producer Bill Geddie said: "I was never pitched Dame Judi Dench to appear on 'The View' in support of 'Mrs. Henderson Presents,' and we would welcome her back to the show anytime we have an opening."

PR people have learned to accept editorial rejection. It's part of the job. If I took to heart all the nasty story turn-downs over the years, I'd certainly be in Bellevue today. Ironically, Mr. Weinstein's public machinations reaped more press attention for his film than a morning show ever could have. Pancakes, anyone?

television film PR public relations

So what's the truth? The always enterprising and entertaining New York Post business reporter Tim Arango yesterday broke the news of a possible Napster-Google deal. Faced with strenuous denials, today he produced the evidence.

Somehow Tim got his hands on the PPT preso used to extol the virtues of such an alignment. Nonetheless, tight lips continued to prevail:

"Napster has declined comment, and yesterday, in a statement, Google spokeswoman Sonya Boralv said: "We have no plans to acquire Napster, nor do we have plans to develop a music store at this time."

Ms. Boralv never directly disputes the existence of talks between the two companies, however. How could she? Tim had the smoking Powerpoint in hand.

Google Napster PR public relations