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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (60749)	2/10/2004 11:14:11 PM
From: abstract	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Not that you need more evidence:) Newsweek Business / Barney Gimbel msnbc.msn.com Everyone knows presidential debates are won not on television but in the media afterwards, in the spin room. It turns out trials have their own spinners—at least trials as prominent as Martha Stewart's. This trial’s “spin room” lies between the wooden pews in the courtroom. That's where the public relations folks lurk—all three of them. (Martha pays their tab personally.) Her people earn their day’s pay: during any break in the proceedings, reporters crowd around them looking for a juicy quote or insight (ever notice a quote from “someone close to the case”?). Often, they even sit in the press rows and gossip with reporters during the trial. Just as with political campaigns, their opinions are biased and unabashedly so. Reporters often agree with them—maybe just to keep the conversation going. Take five minutes on Monday: “That guy handles the truth recklessly,” says one flack after Douglas Faneuil, the government’s star witness, finished testifying. “If you believe what he says, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.” “Yeah, he just pleads ignorance when he doesn’t want to answer the question,” replies a reporter. “He was well trained. I mean, I can’t believe people aren’t covering the fact that this witness is lying on the stand.” Doubtless, some legitimate reasons explain the presence of such spinmeisters. Lawyers for the defendant are certainly busy, and these guys act as reporter’s emissaries But I was surprised to see how large a role they play in the daily proceedings. “What’s happened in the public-relations world is that they’ve realized reporters don’t have a clue how to cover a story, so they give them a little help,” says Stephen D. Isaacs, a journalism professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Does that mean that the PR guys dictate what you’re reading here? (I’ll admit to having talked to them from time-to-time.) Probably not. Still, their message sticks with you. And that’s the whole point. Martha’s folks don’t spread disinformation. They just try to get you on their side. And, I’ll admit, sometimes it’s hard to resist.

To: Sully- who wrote (60749)	2/17/2004 3:30:23 PM
From: abstract	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Strange Medfellows: rushlimbaugh.com "Miami, FL – February 17, 2004 -- If the state’s wholesale seizure of Rush Limbaugh’s medical records is allowed to stand, laws protecting the privacy of every Floridian’s medical records would be rendered meaningless, Mr. Limbaugh’s defense attorneys said in a brief filed Tuesday with the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The ACLU also filed a brief Tuesday supporting Mr. Limbaugh’s case, and an alliance of the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain, The Florida Pain Initiative and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons also will file a supporting brief."