Earlier this week, we used New York's open records law to obtain email exchanges between reporters and Eliot Spitzer's communications director during last year's hookergate fiasco — a story that the Times broke. We turned up examples of Times reporters asking for permission to call sources, previewing copy for sign-off, and generally being surprisingly collaborative with a woman who was paid to manage and mislead them.

In an editorial, PR Week's response is, What's so wrong with that?

True, there are places where it seems the journalists went above and beyond what was necessary in a professional relationship, such as asking for permission to call a source, but let's not forget who broke the story. The fact is that it often takes negotiation to get a great story. We can only see the emails; we don't know the content of the phone calls and meetings that no doubt also took place to put the initial piece and continuous follow-up stories together. It takes trade-offs with your sources and, yes, many times those sources are communications staffers.

So there you have it. Sometimes good journalism requires engaging negotiations and trade-offs with the people who are paid to make sure reporters have to engage in negotiations and trade-offs, according to the people who are paid to make sure reporters have to engage in negotiations and trade-offs. And, to judge by the response we got to that item, according to a lot of reporters, too.

On March 10, 2008, few people on the planet had more difficult jobs than Christine Anderson and Errol Cockfield. They were the communications director and press secretary, respectively, for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and at roughly 1:07 p.m. on that afternoon, the Times went live with a story documenting their boss' entanglement as "Client No. 9" in a federal investigation of a high-end prostitution ring. We were curious what the inside of a PR meltdown looks like, so—following in the footsteps of The State's investigation into the media's efforts to land an exclusive interview with Mark Sanford while he was hiking the Appalachian Trail—we used New York's open records law to obtain e-mail traffic between Anderson, Cockfield, and the dozens of reporters barraging them with inquiries in the days following the Spitzer revelations.

The e-mails total 1,300 pages, and we're still reading through the stack of paper. Any other interesting finds will be going up in subsequent posts. But what we've seen so far has been surprising: You'd think that, with blood in the water, the traditional coziness that develops between official flacks and the beat reporters who have to talk to them every day would break down into some kind of last-man-standing slugfest. But in the Spitzer case, the opposite happened. The revelations upended the worlds of both reporter and flack alike, and the uncertainty, long hours, and breakneck pace of the scandal actually seemed to throw them together as they worked toward what seems, if you read the e-mail exchanges, like a common goal of getting the news out and behind them.

Which makes sense on a human level. But sometimes good reporting—especially of the government watchdog variety—requires an inhuman suspension of compassion. The infractions documented in these e-mails are misdemeanors, but—in addition to being an unvarnished peek inside the media machinery—they're indicative of the creeping social and professional alliances that inevitably develop between PR handlers and their overworked, easily manipulated charges in the press corps. And they give the lie to the myth of the vigilant watchdog press that keeps the government on its toes. Next time you hear New York Times editor Bill Keller claim that newspapers are uniquely situated to do the "hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work [of] quality journalism," remember that his reporter broke the story of Spitzer's dalliances with prostitutes. But also remember the time his reporter e-mailed Gov. Paterson's flack to request permission to call Paterson's former mistress.

This first installment documents the shocking amount of control that Keller's Times allowed Anderson, a former Good Morning America producer and PR veteran of the Clinton White House, to exercise over his paper's coverage. After bringing Anderson's world down around her head by breaking the story, Times reporters previewed portions of their stories with her before publication, asked for her permission before contacting sources, and let her tell them how to characterize its reporting in the paper.

We'll begin at the beginning: On March 9, 2008, Anderson had not yet been informed of Spitzer's transgressions. Which makes this e-mail exchange with Times reporter Danny Hakim, who broke the story along with William K. Rashbaum, almost painfully poignant in retrospect.

Clueless, Anderson tried to sniff out what Hakim was up to, apparently to no avail (Spitzer himself broke the news to his staff early the next morning):

Hakim and Rashbaum's story went live the next day at roughly 2:08 p.m., using the Drudge Report Archives' timeline as a chronological guide. At 1:34 p.m., Hakim was still working his scoop, and e-mailed Anderson to make sure he had a detail right about how Spitzer broke the news to his staff. The subject line was, "can i do this?", and the message body appears to be the actual text Hakim planned to write—in other words, he appears to have been previewing his copy for the woman charged with managing Spitzer's image crisis, and seeking her signoff.

Anderson had a minor quibble with the facts—there was no single meeting at which Spitzer made the announcement—but she objected to the idea of repeating the phrase "ensnared in a prostitution ring," and asked Hakim to simply say Spitzer told his staff about "the matter."

The original Times story has been repeatedly updated, but the current version renders that detail thusly: "The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement."

Two days later, Spitzer announced his resignation, and the media scrum's attention turned to then-Lt. Gov. David Paterson. Paterson had his own press aides, but Anderson stayed on while Spitzer was still nominally in office and managed the coverage of the transition. On March 14, Times reporter Jeremy Peters was working on a profile of Paterson's chief of staff, Charles O'Byrne. He interviewed O'Byrne for the story, apparently working under an agreement that any quotes had to be cleared through Anderson.

Anderson replied that none of the quotes could be used, and recommended some of O'Byrne's friends for Peters to call for (presumably positive) quotes, a fairly routine practice.

Peters didn't push back. He simply asked Anderson how best to characterize O'Byrne's refusal to be quoted. "Say he declined to be interviewed?" asked Peters. Of course, O'Byrne didn't decline to be interviewed—he just declined to be quoted, a distinction that Anderson caught:

It's a bizarre world where flacks are more vigilant than reporters when it comes to trying not to mislead readers. The exchange continued, with Peters trying to gather competitive intelligence from Anderson and Anderson trying to make sure Peters spoke to the sources she wanted him to speak to.

Peters' O'Byrne profile eventually ran on March 20, including a proviso that "Mr. O'Byrne would not comment for this article" and several positive quotes from Ethan Geto and Eric Schneiderman, another source recommended by Anderson.

The PR disaster didn't end with Spitzer's resignation: Just days after Paterson ascended to the governor's office, the New York Daily News reported that both Paterson and his wife had engaged in multiple infidelities. The question of the hour on the afternoon of March 18 was the identity of the governor's office employee mentioned in the Daily News story as one of the new governor's ex-flames. Hakim knew who it was, but the Times would never stoop to delve into someone's private life so tastelessly. Unless the Daily News does it, in which case, yeah, maybe they would. So Hakim checked in with Anderson to find out if some filthy tabloid was getting ready to be first out the gate with Kirton's name, in which case he'd try to beat them.
Worried, Hakim sheepishly—"again, if others are calling her"—asks Anderson for permission to make the call.
Astonishingly, Anderson gives him the go-ahead, and provides him with her phone numbers.

Kirton's name came out a few hours later online. The Times never ended up mentioning her name, because only filthy tabloids do that.

For a sense of the differential treatment that flacks dole out to reporters, have a look at how Anderson responded to Daily News political correspondent Celeste Katz's request for confirmation about Kirton after the name came out—Anderson confirmed it off the record, but offered no contact info unbidden. Perhaps Katz should have asked for permission to call Kirton.

Newsday's Melissa Mansfield made the same request of Anderson's deputy Errol Cockfield, and got even colder treatment:

Mansfield didn't mind the brush-off, and responded with the same sort of sheepish, we-don't-do-gossip ass-covering that Hakim employed:

LOL, indeed. This is just from our first read of the batch of e-mails. There's much more to come. We contacted Hakim and Peters for their responses, but neither reporter agreed to comment for the record.

UPDATE: Diane McNulty, a New York Times spokeswoman, responded in an e-mail to Poynter's Jim Romenesko:

Any suggestion that the Times went too easy on the Spitzer administration seems a bit absurd in this context.

Our goal, always, is to get the facts right. Dealing with sources responsibly and professionally serves that goal, and that is what our reporters did in this case.

The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz offers a who-put-this-chocolate-in-my-foul-rancid-tub-of-weeping-peanut-butter profile of leftie PR operative Hiltzik, pegged to the fact that he works for Beck. It's crazy, because Hiltzik is a liberal Democrat who worked on Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, Eliot Spitzer's 1998 attorney general campaign, and Harvey Weinstein's lifelong megalomania campaign. So how can such a mensch, with all these Hollywood liberal friends, work to advance the career of an increasingly popular nativist demagogue?

The close friendship and lucrative business relationship that has developed between the 45-year-old conservative firebrand and the 37-year-old former Democratic operative shows how partisan media personalities get discovered, promoted and catapulted into the political stratosphere, even when the talent and the talent broker have opposing ideologies. But for Hiltzik's former Democratic allies, the alliance is still mostly shocking.

It is truly a puzzle. It's almost as though Hiltzik is more interested in making money, or accumulating power, than in devoting his life to advancing the political ideals he has claimed in the past to endorse. What sort of self-respecting flack would work for a client whose ideas he doesn't personally advocate and live by?

And how can someone who has flacked for souls as pure as Hillary Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, and Harvey Weinstein turn around and offer his services to a monster like Beck? It's a crazy, crazy world.

Here is another example of the famous "microtrend" of Penn's PR firm Burson-Marsteller doing really scummy work for really scummy clients, all the time.

Even as the public has grown more skeptical of real estate industry boosterism, the National Association of Realtors, with the help of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, has been training brokers nationwide to more effectively talk up market positives. Since February 2008, their "Surround Sound" public relations program has taught 3,500 brokers to counter negative news reports about the housing market, according to Liz Giovaniello, who directs the program for NAR.

"We really aren't in the business of turning people into cheerleaders," she said. "And for some people, buying a home isn't the right thing. We're just trying to tell the other side of the story, that every market is different, and some markets didn't have high foreclosures. . . . We didn't feel that it was always being told."

Finally, someone is getting the "other side" of the story of the collapse of the housing bubble: that everyone should still buy lots of houses. That'll be eleventy billion dollars, National Association of Realtors, just make the check out to Mark.

Do any of Burson-Marsteller's clients have even a marginally decent reputation? Are any of them even considered "not evil"? He is so bad at everything, this Mark Penn person!

STEP ONE: Mark Penn identifies a new microtrend group: people who buy stocks when the market's down. They take risks. Crazy right?

STEP TWO: Allow Mark Penn, kind sirs, to inform you of another microtrend group: people who do not buy stocks when the market's down. In fact you might even say that such people "play it safe."

STEP THREE: Ask yourself, "Which of these groups do I belong to?" Remember your answer.

STEP FOUR: Whichever microtrend group you're in—the "buy now," or the "don't buy now"—act like that. Then watch the money pour in! As Mark Penn says:

I believe that one of the extreme groups is going to get it right, and those doing what the pack is doing will simply wind up on a roller coaster ride to nowhere.

There you have it: according to one of our nation's keenest observers of everything, either buying or selling now will make you rich.

Truly amazing that this man is paid money for whatever it is he does. [WSJ]

In the summer of '06, Tierney and some wealthy Philly-area investors purchased the papers from McClatchy for more than $500 million. (Fast forward through a brief early period of cautious hope, followed by a painful extended period of wring concessions and budget cuts from the newsroom).

Last weekend the papers declared bankruptcy. The day-after story, gleefully reported by the bankrupt papers themselves, among many others, was that Tierney had awarded himself more than a 30% raise last year, even as the company was bleeding money. Then yesterday Tierney was forced to give up that raise. Today, he said that, hey, you ungrateful bastards, the bankers offered him a cool million to lead the company if he'd make even worse cuts, but he was too good of a guy to do it:

"For the last several months and up until the moment we filed [for bankruptcy on Sunday], they wanted me to stay and offered me a handsome compensation plan and a piece of the company," Tierney said.

He's a prince! He also vows to "never" close the Daily News no matter what, which is more of a play for sympathy from his employees than anything else, considering the amount of debt he's up against. It's not working. If Tierney had in fact led the papers to success, he might have been popular. But his business failure just reinforces the opinion of journalists who hated him before he ever became their boss—because he was a hardcore Republican flack who enjoyed complaining to editors about their reporters' work. One reporter he clashed with bitterly said:

"Reporters, we go looking for the truth. This guy, he goes looking for a wrestling match, and the stronger advocate prevails. If he has to pop your shoulder out of its socket, so be it," Cipriano says. "He doesn't understand what we do. He doesn't respect what we do, and he doesn't think we should be doing it... I don't see how a guy like that can run a newspaper and not just turn it into another extension of the spin machine."

He's an assertive, mouthy businessman with no newspaper experience who bought big into the industry at exactly the right time, vowed to turn around a failing paper, and instead rode it into bankruptcy, earning increasing wrath from the newsroom while doing so.

So basically Brian Tierney is Sam Zell with hair. But he does smile occasionally, so cut him some slack. [Pic via]

Today's made-up microgroup that Penn tenuously connects to current events: "Impressionable Elites." These are the types of rich folks who lost all their money to Bernie Madoff—the guy who's been in the news lately. Here are several outrageous things about this column's content and very existence:

• By Mark Penn, "With E. Kinney Zalesne." Is this column really more than a one-man job?
• This column is just a dressed up ad for Penn's ridiculous book. Seriously! He puts the full, overlong title of it right up front in the third graf. And he uses this technique, which should never be allowed in a newspaper:
  

  ...but rather the Impressionable Elites* of country clubs...

  * "Impressionable Elites" is the term we used for educated, affluent people who focus more on personality than issues when it comes to evaluating political decisions. For more, please see pages 131 to 135 in "Microtrends."

  AN ASTERISK. Which jumps to, essentially, another ad for his crappy book! There are many other qualified columnist candidates in the world, WSJ!

• "At a recent meeting of my condo..." Shut up.
• You know who is really an "Impressionable Elite?" Anybody who hires Mark Penn.

[WSJ]

We'll get to the details in a bit, but we know what you're probably thinking: Who? But even if Bailon's name escapes you, Jonathan Jaxson is likely enough of a gossip-culture parasite to leave a mark: The 25-year-old former publicist for the Backstreet Boys is the same freak who last year solicited Perez Hilton's aid in boosting the profile of his upstart blog, JJ's Dirt. And by "solicited," we mean "offered to whore himself out for a private Perez sex tape in exchange for interviews and other [ahem] resources." When both the sex tape and Perez's help failed to materialize, Jaxson fed their IM chats to Page Six and eventually published the blogger's phone number on JJ's Dirt.

Seven months on, when Bailon's laptop was allegedly stolen and bottomless photos of her surfaced online, who was the trusted counsel to whom the starlet turned in her bare-ass time of need? The same Jonathan Jaxson against whom Perez still has a pending lawsuit charging "libel, slander, invasion of privacy, harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress." And who in turn threatened to sue the leaker of Bailon's pics — who is his own client. In concert with Jaxson.

But don't take our word for it: have a look at Jaxson's appearance Tuesday on Atlanta's CBS affiliate, where he apparently has a standing invitation to roll around in the studio fertilizer on-camera for a few minutes every week. And in what we hope might be his last appearance for a while, Jaxson explains exactly how the nudie-scandal sausage was made. Spoiler alert: He's a manipulator! And, without a doubt, the worst fucking publicist in the history of flackdom. Congrats! Or something.

• Dishin' the Dirt: A Nude Cheetah Girl Scandal? [CBS 46 News]

Nick Kalm, founder and president, Reputation Partners - I'm going to buck conventional wisdom and predict that McCain will win — but as narrowly as Bush did in 2000. If McCain does win, it will be because he and his proxies were successful enough at painting a picture of Obama as a "risky liberal" that they were able to overcome the huge advantage in money, new and passionate voters that Obama was able to generate. The proxies (talk radio hosts, Fox News, 529 groups) are key because McCain's campaign and that of the RNC have been "erratic" (to borrow Obama's phrase).

Regardless of who wins, however, the level of partisan rancor will be so high, it will make people long for the "good old days" of Bush's second term.

Now that's a man to whom I would pay thousands of dollars for advice. [PRWeek, my old employer, via PRNewser]

The documentary version, which came out last year, tells the story of Burt and Linda (pictured above, with Klores on left), a New York couple who are straight up crazy. Why? Because Burt was so in love with Linda, he hired goons to throw acid in her face after she broke up with him. And she married him anyways! And they're both still together and acting crazy to this day! I imagine the fictional version can't be any crazier than the real story. Which was—as advertised—crazy. Trailer for the Klores documentary is below:

[Variety. Pic via NY Mag]

Who is Rob Shuter? Once upon a time, he was one of the most powerful celebrity flacks in America, repping clients like Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson. Eventually he got fired from his agency, Dan Klores Communications, lost his big clients, and ended up at OK!, which is really where he belongs. What went wrong?

• Shuter planted a fabricated item in Page Six about his client Paris Hilton being attacked at a club by a supposedly "jealous" Zeta Graff. Graff subsequently sued for $10 million, which compelled Shuter to give legal depositions demonstrating his sleazy method of doing business (plant fake shit on Page Six, specifically). It was all very entertaining. Paris Hilton ended up paying $2 million for this transgression.
• He treated his work on behalf of vapid singer Jessica Simpson like he was a Cold War CIA operative behind enemy lines. He planted nasty items about Simpson ex Nick Lachey. Then he decided to help Simpson get some press by fabricating a big romance between her and singer John Mayer. He convinced People and Us Weekly to put the story on their covers, and then made them all look like fools when the celebs themselves admitted there was no big romance at all. In one masterstroke, Shuter had shattered his own credibility (ha), made his own client look like a desperate liar, pissed off fellow celebrity flacks, and, perhaps worst of all, made enemies of some powerful celebrity magazines. He was then fired by Joe Simpson, for all of the above reasons.
• Having established himself as an untouchable dirtbag that no legitimate PR agency would hire and no smart news outlet would trust, Shuter was scooped up by OK!, first in a consulting role and then as entertainment editor. And now as the top guy. Just perfect.

In unrelated rumormongering, there was gossip earlier this year that Shuter may have been somehow involved in a purported FBI investigation of In Touch magazine for "payments to at least one editor in exchange for prominent placement of certain B-list celebrities." Supposedly some shady British cabal of celebrity flacks and gossip reporters was under scrutiny. We hoped Shuter was wrapped up in it! Alas, no evidence ever confirmed the rumors. And to be fair, he even has some admirers among the gossip press, who say he's friendly and witty.

So what will Shuter be doing for OK!? A good guess: helping them continue to spend big with no apparent monetary return. We hear that OK! is the leading bidder in the war for Angelina Jolie's upcoming baby pictures, with a sum rumored to be around $15 million for worldwide rights. That's in line with the magazine's history of profligacy; we also hear that they've yet to turn a profit, despite an investment in the nine-figure range.

And Shuter, the fabricating flack, will fit right in. One of the best quotes I ever heard while working at PRWeek was from an editor at OK! who gushed on and on about how nice the mag was to its friends in PR, summing it all up by explaining, "We work directly with publicists and celebrities themselves to get the real story." Sure. All together now in the race to the bottom.

Over half of PR people said they do a good job sending bloggers relevant information, but two thirds of bloggers disagreed. And less than 40% on both sides agreed that "bloggers are journalists and should be treated as such."

A vast majority of flacks, 86%, said it's not okay to leave an anonymous comment on a blog on behalf of a client. Of course, there's plenty who wouldn't mind doing it on behalf of themselves, if our suspicions are correct.

And the biggest disconnect of all didn't really make the bloggers look like the righteous bunch. 96% of flacks disagreed with this statement: "It is okay to compensate bloggers for writing about my clients, but it is not up to me to tell them to disclose the payment."

But almost half of bloggers agreed. They want to get paid, yo!

So at least half of bloggers are ready to get paid by PR firms, and not have to reveal it unless they feel like it. That's really all the PR industry needs, thank you very much.

More importantly, APCO wants YOUR comments on the issue, right here. While you're there, why not add your thoughts on APCO's extensive work on behalf of the tobacco industry? Honesty is the best policy when it comes to blogland!

Flacks, Hacks, & Friends Karaoke Hosted by Red Branch PR

Flacks, Hacks, and Friends Round One:

Because singing and drinking makes everything better on both sides of
the fence.

The deadlines, the pitching, and the drone of pre-spring has us
itching to shake things up in the media and PR world. That said, we
would like to cordially invite you to join us for our first installation
of Flacks, Hacks, and Friends at Winnie's Bar on Thursday, March 6th @
8pm as we join the Karaoke regulars and put aside all the ruckus for an
evening of harmony, or lack thereof.
Flacks and Hacks

Feel free to bring friends or co-workers or potential crooners off the
street if you're scared to come alone. Remember that just as singers are
essential, so are enthusiastic observers so no pressure to go "American
Idol" if you're a shy gal or guy. Start brainstorming your song line-up
and we look forward to seeing you next week!

Cheers,
The Red Branch Team
*Event Info*
Winnie's
104 Bayard St near Baxter
Thursday March 6th
8:00PM-???

I'm a high-level advertising and marketing executive who's hired - and used- some of the top PR firms in the nation.

As part of their "media training" they commonly tell you lying is fine.

From a direct quote within an Edelman (the nation's largest independent PR firm) session, training our entire senior management team:

"Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie. Make the audience or the reporter believe that everything is ok. How many times have you heard a CEO stand up and say "No, I'm not leaving the company" and then - days later - he's gone. Reporters understand that you "had" to do it and they won't hold it against you in your next job when you deal with them again."

Early Wired editor Kevin Kelly supported Anderson, but some commenters pointed out that Wired publicist and ad reps are no strangers to spam, while others just considered it bad form to retaliate by exposing flacks' e-mails to real spammers.

Today Anderson dissected the reactions, but he skipped one consequence of his action: Publicity-hungry bottom-feeders now have a list of (hopefully) low-rent flacks.

(Photo by Aaron Tang/designverb)

From: Jill Nash Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:53 AM To: [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; Marta Nichols; Samuel J Wolff; Matt Rhodes; Cathy La Rocca; Allen Olivo; Peter Daboll; Nick Chavez Subject: Team update

All:

After eight years on the Corporate Communications team, Joanna Stevens has decided to open the next chapter of her life. Her last day on the team will be October 30th.

Her contributions to Yahoo! have been immeasurable - from spearheading major announcements to managing countless crises to helping to grow our team. She's worked closely with three generations of Yahoo! executive teams, providing valuable guidance on corporate communications strategies, messaging, and positioning. She's helped the company navigate through crises that ranged from unprecedented lawsuits to adult content to market rumors. Jo has also driven financial communications, played a major role in countless earnings announcements, stockholder meetings, annual reports, and Analyst Days. Jo also led the team through pivotal announcements and acquisitions, overseeing the communications strategy and execution for major finanical transactions, including Overture, Flickr, RightMedia, and Alibaba to name just a few.

Jo also helped reinforce the Yahoo! brand externally and internally in her work. She conceived of the Yahoo! Yodel Challenge, leading the tour across the country and turning Wiley Gustafson, our litigious yodeler, into an enthusiastic emcee. She also led the cross-functional team that engineered a memorable 10th Anniversary for Yahoos and users around the world. And, of course, Jo is to be thanked for the countless stories that you've never read about Yahoo!.

May Petry, who is also VP of PR for Connected Life, will step in as interim leader until Jo's replacement is found. I'd like to thank Jo for nearly eight years of dedication to Yahoo!. Please join me in wishing her all the best.

Jill