FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

What's Good For Imus Should Be Good For Chris Matthews

When MSNBC finally got around to firing Don Imus last spring they said it was because he was a serial offender of inappropriate comments and inappropriate banter. The network said they couldn't tolerate that.

And yet, here we go again.One  of their uber stars, Chris Matthews is spewing sexist comments on a regular and ongoing basis. While many are honing in on his  offensive comments about Hillary Clinton, she is just the latest in a long list of women that he has either insulted or verbally hit on.

Here's my problem.  If you are going to fire Imus for saying inappropriate things about women,  then either management at MSNBC hasn't been watching the same program as the rest of us, or  the management believes its okay to say s inappropriate things about women as long as race is not also involved..

It would be helpful if the network shared what their definition of inappropriate is. What are their standards? How do they assess whether a remark is sexist? Do they have criteria?

If a producer or lower level employee said the same things to guests that Chris Matthews does, would they be reprimanded?

To read my entire rant, check out this post on Blogher.

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New York Times Blames It On "A Sales Rep"

In a  half -hearted  mea culpa editorial "Betraying Its Own Best Interests" New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt tries to explain  away  the Petraeus Ad  brouhaha with a corporate standby  expected of  a lesser organization --- they're blaming it on the sales rep.

Now there are really two issues that Clark had to deal with in his editorial. The first was  explaining how the ad was accepted in the first place---The New York Times has an advertising policy that  it does not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.

The advertising editor says he accepted the ad because of the question mark. Okay, fine.

But, to explain how the organization got a discounted "Standby"  ad rate, for an ad that Moveon.org called in as a "rush" ad, this is the paper's explanation:

The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.[...] Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, said, “We made a mistake.” She said the advertising representative failed to make it clear that for that rate The Times could not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the understanding that the ad would run then. She added, “That was contrary to our policies.”

Say it isn't so, New York Times! How could the venerable gray lady of the 5th estate stoop so low.

It was bad enough when you had the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller scandals, but now you are blaming a senior level decision on "A SALES REP?"

Mr. Hoyt,that statement doesn't pass the smell test. It does not pass the test of public scrutiny.

Good Grief! Do you really think the general public is living in a turnip patch?

Moveon.org is paying the balance due..that's about $80,000 more than they originally played.

The NYT is refusing to name the "so-called" Sales Rep.

If the  tables were turned and the newspaper  was trying to get to the bottom of  a similar scandal at a regular business would they leave it at that? I don't think so. They wouldn't let up until the "Sales Rep" was exposed, humiliated and his/her career destroyed.

It's easy to be a truth-seeker when the spotlight isn't on you.

Breaking News: MSNBC recycling five year old news stories on its overnight newscast

This is a story about a group of birds. A car wash and a car wash owner who knew someone was stealing money out of his coin box.

It's a cute story ---the kind that TV news programs like to have at the bottom of the news cast. They call it "the kicker." The idea is to leave the viewers with a smile on their face.

Thinking that Friday is a great day to write a "kicker" post,  I went exploring to learn more about these thieving birds.

I found everything I needed to find on Urban Legends with a story called Change Is In The Air.

Oh my. Turns out that this story which MSNBC featured on an overnight newscast today September 7, 2007  is old news. Like 2002 news. Like a story that is so incredulous that Urban Legends actually has an entire page devoted to the story -- which it hasn't updated since 2004.

Last time I checked timeliness is still a factor when it comes to "the news" Or is it?

Urban Legends credits the Utah Birds website for the actual story

The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was     loosing significant amounts of money from his coin machines each week. He     went as far as to accuse Bill's employees of having a key to the boxes and     ripping him off. Bill just couldn't believe that his people would do that.     So they setup a trap for the thief.

Well they caught the thief in the act! Scroll down to see the thief.

 

    The bird had to go down in the machine and back up to get to the money! 

Last time I checked a five year old story isn't exactly the kind of story that a news operation would offer up as news -- kind of fails to meet the timeliness test.

So how did that story cross the desk of the news writer? And, if they had just Googled the story they would have found that the original story had some discrepencies. One of the biggest and most legitimate criticisms of bloggers is that we take a story that has not been properly fact checked and we fly with it.

MSNBC not only offered up a five year old story to its readers, it didn't get the story right because it ripped and read.

The car wash is in Fredricksburg Virginia, Not in Fredricks Maryland. And,contrary to "the legend" part of the story, the car wash owner did not discover $4000 in quarters on the roof of the car wash.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't do an entire story on these thieving birds because  the story occurred so long ago. But it is news when a news organization offers up a five year old story as if it happened last Wednesday.

If, after reading this five year old story I wanted to share it, I would normally try to do an update  aka known as the follow-up story.  I'd check to see what adjustments the coin manufacturer made to keep out the birds. I'd ask if the birds were still hanging around the car wash and I'd check to see if any other car washes around the country were plagued by the money hungry birds.

Otherwise I wouldn't think of giving you the bird today.

 

            

Hell has no fury like a restaurant scorned

Two years ago it would have been unheard of. Today, in the equalizing world of Web 2.0 and blogs, those that are scorned by mainstream media scorn back.

Such is the case of The New York Times food critic Frank Bruni vs restaurateur turned blogger Jeffrey Chodorow.

The short version: Bruni writes a scathing review of Chodorow's new restaurant. Chodorow takes out a full page ad in the New York Times questioning Bruni's qualifications and to announce he is starting a blog where he will among other things shadow the reviews of the NYT food critics.

Is that delicious or what?

First,  Bruni 's no star review of Chodorow's latest restaurant venture.

Hanging upside down from the ceiling in the nearly pitch-black dining room are sharp, gleaming samurai swords, about 2,000 of them. The server volunteered that number, appended with an assurance that the blades, firmly anchored, shouldn’t cause any concern. The food and the bill should. Although Kobe Club does right by the fabled flesh for which it’s named, it presents too many insipid or insulting dishes at prices that draw blood from anyone without a trust fund or an expense account.

Then came Chodorow's full page ad.

"Mr. Bruni comes to us from Rome where he was not the local “expert” on Italian cuisine; he wrote about politics. In fact, there hasn’t been a real food critic with food background (except perhaps Amanda Hesser) at the New York Times since Ruth Reichl (now editor-in-chief at Gourmet magazine). Perhaps that’s also why your reviews are so all over the lot, with great restaurants getting bad reviews, fair restaurants getting great ones, one star reviews that read like two star and three star reviews that read like one star. Your readers would not expect your drama critic to have no background in drama or your architecture critic to not be an architect. For a publication that prides itself on integrity, I feel your readers should be better informed as to this VERY IMPORTANT fact, so that they can give your reviews the weight, or lack thereof, they deserve."

Near the end of the ad, Mr. Chodorow shared his true intention. From now on, he is going to shadow the food critics at the NY Times and great his own reviews in his newly launched blog.

"In the interest of fairness, I am also introducing my personal blog, which will be a compilation of my food-related experiences and musings and a special section entitled Following Frank and After Adam, in which I will make a follow-up visit to restaurants they write about for the purpose of reviewing their reviews. My blog will appear at www.chinagrillmgt.com/blog. "

So far over 60 people have shared comments on Chodorow's blog. Their comments are mixed from calling him a cry baby to applauding him.

Nothin' like  a food fight to get you smilin' in the morning.

  to Chip Griffin who wrote a great post on the restaurant wars.

Image credit: New York Times, Robert Presutti

Donald's Heart of Gold

  Fox News covered it as a FOX NEWS ALERT. As the media waited with baited breath to hear Donald utter the words he once tried to copyright-- Donald did what Donald does. He got more headlines.

If this whole MISS USA escapade were an algebraic equation it would look something like this Scandel + redemption =Rating Bonanza $$$$$$.

You can read the entire post at Blogher.

French Newspaper decides Bloggers are no longer second class citizens

For some journalists, it's akin to Chicken Little declaring, "The sky is falling. The sky is falling."  Not only is the French newspaper Le Monde,welcoming bloggers ---they are giving them equal billing as professional journalists.

Mon Dieu.

From Loic Le Meur blog,

Le Monde is one of the first newspaper in the World to offer blogs to their readers, under the Le Monde brand. They have also published a ranking of the 10 top blogs, mixing their journalists blogs and their readers blogs, showing them at the same level, based on blog readers recommendations.

The Le Monde blogging policy comes at a time when American newspapers are continuing the slippery slope into circulation oblivion. A slip, that Jennifer Saba reports in Editor &Publisher ,the financial experts expected.

"Circulation declined as expected," wrote John Janedis, senior analyst with Wachovia Equity Research, in a note. He, like others, points to the effects of the Internet that is giving print circulation a whipping.
 
"We expect the companies in our coverage universe to continue to improve their online presence, using both their own Web sites, as well as to purchase other online assets, to help combat the continued decline in circ trends," Janedis wrote.
 
Bear Stearns analyst Alexia Quadrani doesn't even think yesterday's bad news -- daily circulation plunged 2.8% and Sunday fell 3.4%, one of, if not the worst drop in recent years -- will do much to shake The Street's confidence. Or lack thereof.
 
"Overall we believe these results are in line with expectations of low to mid single-digit average declines and therefore do not expect a material impact [on] the publishing stocks," Quadrani wrote in a note. For that, she's waiting for October advertising results.

The folks at Freakonomics have different take on the situation.They say the circulation drops are intentional

Not everyone is convinced that newspapers are dying, of course. Jack Welch wants to buy the Boston Globe; Dow Jones just managed to find a buyer who paid $282 million for six smaller newspapers; and of course several months ago, McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder. Circulation declines notwithstanding, these transactions suggest an underlying value that the newspapers’ own articles do not reflect.

The media executive Allan D. Mutter makes a very interesting point on his blog about circulation declines: a lot of them are essentially intentional. That is, circulation figures are falling in part because many newspapers—in response, I am guessing, to recent audit scandals at Newsday
and elsewhere—have stopped distributing free or cheap copies of their papers, which used to be helpful in padding circulation figures.

But, as Music City Mafia pointed out,

Circulation is the least of the newspaper’s worries. Advertisers are heading for the exits in droves. Car dealers have traditionally spent more money in the local paper than all other media combined. And that has held steady for decades. But newspapers share of dealer’s budgets (according tot the N.A.D.A) has deopped from 51% to 36% in the last two years. I assumer that similar numbers exist for your favorites: Real Estate Agents

Working Girls Can't Win For Losing

On the right we have Campbell Brown. Although Brown was on the short list for taking over Katie Couric's job on The Today show, Radar Online reported earlier this week that NBC execs say she never had a chance because she isn't a mommy.

NBC brass concluded that Today's core audience of stay-at-home moms would have trouble relating to a female host without rugrats of her own, banter about kids and spouses being as essential a part of Today's mix as cooking segments and Al Roker. (In fact, Brown wasn't even an honest woman until April, when she wed Fox News analyst Dan Senor.)

In writing about the Brown disclosure in  the BROADSHEET Column in Salon.com ( subscription required),Rebecca Traister wrote:

Apparently, the "Today" show's female viewers, including a core of stay-at-home moms, "would have trouble relating to a female host without rugrats of her own." It didn't help that Brown is something of a looker, and that the network felt her less-foxy viewers might have been intimidated by her beauty.

On the left we have Meredith Vieira. who was forced to leave her prestigious job at 60 minutes  in 1991 because she couldn't negotiate a family friendly contract. Vieira is the mom to three teenagers and whose husband is legally blind, has MS and a couple of bouts of colon cancer. She premiered on TODAY last week.  This from The New York Times

"At 52, Ms. Vieira is that rare television woman who doesn’t seem afraid of her age, perhaps because even with sagging skin and rippling smile lines, she looks amazingly pretty and vibrant on camera. She wore a sober black pantsuit that was casually elegant, not stuffy. Her manner, warm and self-deprecating, is easy on the eyes and ears"

And in the center, Katie Couric.  Since her debut earlier this month on the revamped CBS Evening News we have heard about the legs, the botox, the clothes, From Andrea Peyser's review in the New York Post,

Her face was Botoxed beyond normal human endurance, proving that even pampered, overpaid news babes possess the courage to suffer for their art.

And for the first time in history that a female was allowed to deliver a network's evening news alone, Katie chose to wear an unfortunate white blazer - the result, no doubt, of some jokester lying to her face when Katie asked, "Does this make me look fat?"

And the day after Labor Day, to boot!

So much written about nothing. Nothing  or very little written about their qualifications.
Does anyone know anything about Charlie Gibson's wife or kids?  Has it been in a lomg marriage or is he a serial  husband? What about  Brian Williams? Does his wife have any diseases? What about his kids?  Do the men  get spa treatments? A little microderm abrasion? Maybe a touch of botox or are we encouraging a couple of smile lines on their faces to add to their gravitas?

I actually don't have a problem with people commenting on the appearance of TV anchors or how the job affects their family life  as long as men are given the same scrutiny as the women.

It is demeaning, discriminatory and insulting when women are not judged on the same criteria as men. So go ahead talk about insipid white jackets and botox and legs-- and now let's put that same micrsocrope on the men.

It won't happen because to do so would be to marginalize their effectiveness and professionalism. Hey you want to talk about Meredith's smile lines and Katie's Botox? Do it over it lunch. But spending all this oxygen  in the media on who has kids, who'sa more sacrificing mom and who is sexier is on the same level as Forbes hideous article on Why Men Shouldn't Marry Career Women.

While the insights about botox and kids may seem harmless and just part of our culture ( those mommys love to read this stuff), it is irresponsible on the part of the leaders in media to continue to perpetuate covering the fashion and appearance of women news professionals.

If this were just ignorance at play, it would be one thing. But these are smart boys. They know exactly what they are doing.  By encouraging the discourse on Katie's legs, Campbell's childlessness, and Meredith's sacrifice they are sending a message to everyone about the way women need to behave-- the way they, the boys want us to behave.

A couple of thoughts to reporters; How about saying no. No more stories about Katie's Botox if in the same article you don't talk about the other anchors appearances. No more stories about their Mommyness unless you talk about their coworker's daddiness. And no more comments on clothing unless you 're ready to do nightly critiques  on the choice of ties these anchors wear.

Just Flock It

   Under the category of Browser Wars, a fellow Blogher who also happens to work at Flock, recently responded to someone's question on an easy way to add photos to their blogs.

I was interested because I have spent considerable time trying to learn the art of including photos on blogs.

Adding photos can be daunting. There's the sizing issue and the copy wrapping issue that sometimes can take longer to resolve than the post itself.

She recommended --sharing that she did work for Flock-- that they should start using Flock as their browser. Given that I am not a techie and that I just converted to FireFox from IE in 2006, I had never heard about Flock.  And, if you are, like I was, of the mindset that a browser, is a browser , is a browser...then I encourage you to take a look at flock.

From Extreme Tech

The Internet is supposed to be interactive, right? It's not just about being a passive watcher of Web sites, but about sharing your input, as well. The Flock browser is an attempt to bring some of the Web 2.0-style concepts right to the application that gives you a view of the interweb. Built on top of FireFox, Flock incorporates "mashups"—the hip buzzword for web service integration—with social bookmarks (with del.icio.us and Shadows), photo sharing (with Flickr and Photobucket), and blogging—with tools built into the browser for posting to your blog. In fact, it's this integration on which Flock's creators intend to build their business model, cutting deals with other web services.

Based on Firefox it does have some dandy features like allowing you to drag and drop photos from your desktop to their photobucket uploader and then a strip of your photos (that black band at the top of the screen shot) is displayed in the browser so you can just drop and drag the photos from your photbucket  onto your post. Very Cool. It magically does all the html coding thing for you. I'm sure it does a ton more that's all I've tried so far.

From Personal Computing World

Setup is easy and Flock will take all of the settings from Firefox, including page history and cookies. This makes the transition the most painless of all browser upgrades, although this will not help those moving from Internet Explorer or Opera. The interface is similar to most browsers, although the most recent browsing history is revealed by right-clicking on the Back button rather than there being a discrete menu. It does feel a little hidden, but is convenient once discovered. On a more favourable note, it is possible to add icons for the blogging, photo and news tools. A search box in the toolbar is nothing new, but the extra twist from Flock is that it searches dynamically as text is entered. The results vary depending on the words but it is a much faster way of searching. Flock is an ideal tool for anyone who wants to record their web experiences on a blog. Simply select an area of text or even an image, and then select the Blog This option. An editor appears with both a Wysiwyg editor and a source editor. It is compatible with Blogger, Typepad and other popular blogging tools. You can see some demo posts at http://ano pensource.wordpress.com.

Did Donald Trump Go Too Far?

There are bloggers who have talked about their bosses. There are bloggers who have been fired for talking about their bosses. But, Donald Trump may be the first CEO to use his blog to share with the world his reasons for firing an employee.

In a post called Carolyn on the Trump Blog, Trump shares the details that led to his decision to tell Carolyn Kepcher"You're Fired!".

The fact is, I like Carolyn very much but she loved her fame and she loved her celebrity on "The Apprentice" and it was affecting her work. She wasn't doing her job like she used to or was capable of doing. So I felt that after 11 years together it was time for a rest.

I told Carolyn in the nicest way possible, "Go out and enjoy your family. Get a new job."

There are some things that deserve to be confidential. Reasons for dismissal, as long as their are no legal violations, deserve silence -not blogging.Most CEOs have more respect for themselves and for their employees and the potential of a defamation of character lawsuit. I have a feeling The Donald could care less.

But what if The Donald is actually starting a trend---The revenge of the CEO. Or as my friend Nancy White calls it " The Firing Blog". Imagine if this trend continues and Firing Blogs  take their rightful place along  with the mommy bloggers, the food bloggers, and the political bloggers.

Firing Blogs are for  all those business executives who have had to sit back in silence as their employees,and former employees gleefully blog their brains out telling stories out of school about the horror of their leadership style.

So far, most agree its unethical and a fireable offense to publicly blog about  your boss or  your place of employment.  So,if that's the case,  could Firing Blogs take off ,or is this just a one-blogger with  The   Donald being able to do it because after all, he's The Donald?

What do Tom Cruise,Mel Gibson and Forbes magazine have in common?

They said a bad, bad, thing. Mel apologized. Tom got the boot.Forbes pulled its article. You can read my entire post at blogher.