So when you look at the numbers, the heyday of the Soccer Mom is passing. They will continue to exert a measurable influence, but in a world of evolving microtrends, they are on the decline. And on the rise are single, urban workaholics, Internet-junkie empty nesters, and new immigrants taking root.

So, Mark Penn's Trademark Microtrends of The Future:

"Single, urban workaholics"= Alcopops
"Internet-junkie empty nesters"= Masturbating Bears
"New immigrants taking root"= Happenin' Latins

Pay this man one million dollars, at once.
[Pic: Getty]

His new Microtrend: "Grandparents to the Rescue." Aww! Mark Penn is a cuddly scamp. Tell us, sir, where did you come up with the insightful and potentially profitable insider knowledge that led you to write this eye-opening [Summary: Recession's on, grandparents are working less, babysitting more] journalistic column?

We recently did a poll of grandparents in America, and the state of grandparental devotion in America is strong.

Who is this omniscient 'We?' It's Mark Penn's polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates. Usually polling firms have to have PR people make up fake story angles from polls like this and then desperately pitch those angles to bored reporters. But Mark Penn can just write it up in his very own WSJ column!

Your decisionmaking skills are vindicated, WSJ. Carry on.

Recap: We got a leaked internal email in which a Burson-Marsteller executive mused over how to use Mark Penn's newspaper column as a tool for attracting clients from the industry he had just written about. Which is totally unethical! But the WSJ decided to keep Penn as a columnist after a mealy-mouthed explanation, because they are pathetic, just like Penn himself. Now, at long last, Mark has cast more intellectual Micro-Pearls before swine (people like you).

Did you know that people have cell phones now and not home phones? Mark Penn calls that a million-dollar motherfuckin' Microtrend, kids. You know who is bucking said trend? Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn.

But the flip side of phoneless homes is a more transparent, always-on lifestyle represented by the rise of cellphones. Landline or no, I'll stay connected to my daughter. But she can always phone home — we're resisting becoming a phoneless home, at least for now, if only so she won't miss the reassurance of place, as I do.

Burson client Sony Ericsson heartily applauds this growing Microtrend and all its various manifestations! The FreeMove Mobile Alliance (a Burson client!) salutes it as well! This is a great excuse to call all the telecom companies—we can send a note from MJP saying he wants a meeting, to discuss Mictrotends, and the ways in which they touch one's heart! And family! And daughters!

Is Burson-Marsteller capable of being embarrassed by anything? Not sure, but we'll find out.
[Pic: Getty]

We do feel for the beleaguered actual reporters in the WSJ newsroom, who have to see their own reputations suffer by association while their paper's leadership caves in to a celebrity pseudo-columnist's right to disregard basic conflict-of-interest rules. One Journal employee told us, "While the Mark Penn incident is as egregious as it is embarrassing, at this point, I think most of the newsroom is so emotionally numb that nothing surprises us anymore. Truly."

The New York Times coaxed a statement out of Penn last night. It is pathetic:

In a statement, Mr. Penn, who declined to be interviewed, said that he had not seen the message until after it was sent, and that "nothing was done nor likely to be done as a result of it." He said that none of the companies mentioned in his column were Burson-Marsteller clients.

"I had no business motive in writing it whatsoever," he said. But, he added, "We will continue to distribute the columns to friends and clients alike, and assured The Journal they will not be tied to any specific marketing efforts."

More pathetic: the fact that this—which is not only not contrite, but actually dares you to believe that Burson-Marsteller will "continue to distribute" the column to clients and potential clients, but that that will not constitute a "marketing effort"—was enough to convince the standards-setters at the nation's premier business paper to give this man a pass. Not only that, but the WSJ's spokesman still refuses to comment on whether the paper is "comfortable with" Burson's actions.

It's also worth noting that while Penn's main excuse to the paper was that he didn't know in advance about this effort to leverage the column into clients, it's ridiculous to spin this into some sort of rookie mistake or uncharacteristic action. The email in question came from Josh Gottheimer, one of Burson's top global executives and head of the firm's Public Affairs practice. That means he's the head political communications guy. He was a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, and for John Kerry and Wesley Clark's presidential campaigns. He was also the head PR guy for Ford. He knows what the fuck he's doing.

Finally, pathetic and amusing: The paper is keeping on Mark Penn, presumably, because they don't think they can afford to lose his unparalleled insight into the latest MICROTRENDS like—in this case—"glamping." Strange. An insider tells us that a WSJ travel reporter pitched a "glamping" story to the paper four years ago. The reporter was told that the story was too old.
[Pic: Larry Roibal]

This was the Wall Street Journal's first real test of journalism ethics under Rupert Murdoch's ownership. And, surprisingly, they've fucking failed, big time. The story broke yesterday afternoon—complete with a leaked email showing top execs at Burson-Marsteller suggesting how to use the latest column by Penn, their CEO, as a tool to recruit clients from the industry he wrote about. The paper assured us yesterday they were "looking into it," and cited their clear conflict of interest policy. That policy, they assured us, was the Dow Jones Code of Conduct that we excerpted in our own post yesterday, which demands that the company ensure that:

* Our analyses represent our best independent judgments rather than our preferences, or those of our sources, advertisers or information providers;
* Our opinions represent only our own editorial philosophies; or
* There are no hidden agendas in any of our journalistic undertakings.

Well. Didn't take long to throw that away! Today, WSJ spokesman Robert Christie explained the results of the paper's thorough investigation like so:

"Mark has assured us that through our conversations that he's complied with his conflict of interest policy. He does not have any glamping clients nor did they target them before the column appeared."

That's right: The WSJ's investigation consisted of calling Mark Penn and asking him, "Hey, did you comply with that conflict of interest policy?" The world-famous investigative skills of the WSJ in action, ladies and gentlemen. As a follow-up, we asked Christie if he was implying that it's fine for a columnist to go recruiting clients from a column he just wrote after it's published. His reply:

Obviously when you have a contributor, they use a column to market themselves. Clearly what was done is not something that we liked. But we're pretty sure that it's going to stop.

The Wall Street Journal is "pretty sure" that Mark Penn's PR firm will stop using its CEO's purportedly unbiased column as a business recruitment tool! Why are they "pretty sure?" Because Mark Penn said so! Fuck that published email evidence, anyhow! It was on a "blog," and "blogging" hasn't been a Microtrend for like two years.

Here's what this means for you, the reader of the WSJ: You should assume, when you read a Mark Penn column, that Burson-Marsteller will run to the leading companies in any industry mentioned in that column and set up meetings for them with Mark Penn, who will try to use that column as a tool to recruit them as PR clients. If you really want to be safe, intellectually, it only makes sense to also assume that Mark Penn may decide what to write his columns about based on the business needs of Burson-Marsteller—which are, after all, his primary responsibility.

You should also assume that any other WSJ contributing columnist could be doing the same thing. Because the paper clearly does not consider it a firing offense.

Don't worry, Mark Penn. We won't forget about you. We're looking forward to your next column.

[Previously: The Full Story]

Scumbag spotted!

Mark Penn's latest (old, and none too insightful) 'Microtrend' column is about "glamping"—glamorous camping. It ran last weekend. By Monday, according to an internal email obtained by Gawker, Burson was already trying to recruit companies from the industry featured in the column as clients. Burson Executive Vice President (and former Bill Clinton speechwriter) Josh Gottheimer urged Burson's senior staff—including Founding Chairman Harold Burson, US President & CEO Patrick Ford, and others, to use Penn's column as a tool to approach clients in the camping industry about business. Not only that—he recommends that Mark Penn "send a note" to the CEO of these potential clients requesting a meeting.

You may recall that Mark Penn was canned as Hillary Clinton's campaign strategist after it emerged that his firm was trying to get a contract to do PR work for the nation of Colombia—work that went against Clinton's own political position (a story that the WSJ broke). We pointed out at the time that it was idiotic to expect a full-time PR exec to be anything but a PR exec—Penn's job is to bring in business to Burson (one of America's biggest, and shadiest PR firms), and anyone expecting Burson to pass up business opportunities because they somehow clash with Mark Penn's various other hobbies will be sorely disappointed.

Moonlighting from his PR career has already screwed a politician. Now he's screwing a newspaper the same way. Here we have a Wall Street Journal columnist whose firm is taking his newspaper columns fresh off the press and running to any company connected to the column's subject of the week, trying to get them to sign up with said firm—led by the columnist himself!—for PR work. At best, Penn has a conflict of interest here that can only be resolved by resigning one job or the other. The least generous interpretation would be that Burson-Marsteller is purposefully using the editorial space of the Wall Street Journal as a business recruitment tool—fooling one of the nation's most prestigious papers into giving it ad space it can use to promote its own clients, for free.

Either way, whatever sort of credibility Penn had as an expert who spots trends based on data rather than on his own firm's business considerations is clearly shot. WSJ parent company Dow Jones' own Code of Conduct states that "The Company will suffer, for example, if our customers cannot assume" these principles are followed:

• Our analyses represent our best independent judgments rather than our preferences, or those of our sources, advertisers or information providers;
• Our opinions represent only our own editorial philosophies; or
• There are no hidden agendas in any of our journalistic undertakings.

We're contacting the WSJ and Burson-Marsteller and we'll bring you their responses when we get them. In the meantime: Don't go trusting any Microtrends. Unless you're Mark Penn's client.

Update: The WSJ referred us to Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal and Executive Editor for the Journal Online. He tells us he is "Looking into it. We have a clear conflict of interest agreement with Mr. Penn and all our outside columnists."
[Pic: Getty]

And so the term "boss" today applies to a lot more of us than ever before. If you have 6 million bosses in companies across the country, and 10 million self-employed, then out of 145 million people working, roughly one in 10 can be said to be the boss. No wonder Michael Scott of "The Office" — who at least is the boss of his own domain — is the center of workplace satire today, rather than lunch-bucket stiffs like Archie Bunker or Mary Tyler Moore. As bosses, we are the chief executives of billions of dollars of value, even if it's just a sideline, a startup or not yet fully formed.

1. Even assuming Michael Scott of "The Office" is the "center of workplace satire" today, why is that "No wonder," given the stated fact that a full 90% of us are still just "lunch-bucket stiffs?"

2. "As bosses, we are the chief executives of billions of dollars of value." Well yes. Every business has some "boss." All of the "bosses" in America, taken together, would represent the totality of American business "dollars of value." Which would certainly be "billions and billions." This is somewhat like saying "All of our money together represents all of our money."

Make the check out to "MARK PENN, BOSS," in the amount of one million dollars.

Here in America you can scientifically divide people into two groups: "Elites," defined as "The 260 people who went to the Aspen Ideas Festival with Mark Penn and filled out a survey for him," and "Mainstream America," defined as "People who eat Funyuns while playing XBox more than three times per week." The differences are not just a matter of "Wealthy white men who are invited to things like the Aspen Ideas Festival vs. Poors"; it's an issue of lifestyle.

Elites like to work out and read books. Mainstreams like—as we mentioned—Funyuns and XBox. But! Did you know that the Elites are actually the biggest suckers of all?!?

Lower-income people tend to research their buying choices pragmatically. Elites therefore are actually more swayed by brands, both in politics and the marketplace. They are more likely to say that a presidential candidate's character or personality is of greater importance than his or her stand on the issues. They are less likely to seek out consumer information, satisfied instead to go with brand names they think stand for quality... it is intriguing, from a marketing perspective, that the people with the most education are the ones who can be most easily "spun."

The proof: it is the Elites who pay Mark Penn's salary. QED.

[WSJ. EASY JOKE: Mark Penn likes reading and Funyuns, he is some sort of hybrid creature?!]

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!

Nobody wants to be in the "middle class" any more. Nowadays most people describe themselve to pollsters as "professionals." Even though they are not, by traditional standards! Just look at some of the riff-raff trying to up their social stations now:

But the definition of professional has expanded. Most people in the fields of advertising, communications, health care and computer science consider themselves professionals

Ha, that would make Mark Penn a professional, which is prima facie ridiculous. Of course, the fact that his whole new Professional class is an illusion doesn't stop Mark Penn from declaring them to the new Soccer Moms, which is a Microtrend. Tell us, Mark Penn, what are the secret characteristics of this laughably inclusive made-up group?

Today's new professional is better educated, better read, more plugged-in, more socially tolerant, more environmentally conscious — and while they like individuality in how they dress and act, they are much more open to having government solve our problems. Jobs like "network" engineer are all about improving collaboration.

No price is too high to pay for such insight.
[WSJ. Pic via]

The FTC, which polices antitrust violations along with the Department of Justice, is investigating Apple and Google for a potential violation of a 1914 law against overlapping boards which may hinder competition.

People in Silicon Valley have long wondered at the close ties between Apple and Google. When Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board in 2006, Apple had yet to launch the iPhone and Google wasn't a player in the cell-phone market. But the depth of ties seemed curious, even without that conflict. Genentech CEO Art Levinson already served on both boards, and two Apple board members, Bill Campbell and Al Gore, served as Google advisors. That's a block of four directors — half the board, able to stalemate any Google-unfriendly strategic move.

It's an obvious thing to investigate. But why now, since it's been the case for years? Schmidt campaigned for Barack Obama, and was recently appointed as a science advisor to the president. Fat lot of good that's done him. This is the second antitrust case Google is facing, following one over a settlement with book publishers which critics say would limit competition in book search.

The Obama administration, despite its ties to Schmidt, has signaled that it will be more aggressive in antitrust enforcement (as Democratic administrations usually are). But what else do Google and Apple share, besides directors? A common enemy in Microsoft. And Microsoft has hired Burson-Marsteller, a PR and lobbying outfit which lists "position[ing] technology firms in antitrust cases" as one of its specialties. A Burson-Marsteller executive has denied lobbying against Google on Microsoft's behalf. So modest! At the same time, the firm, run by loathsome unterflack Mark Penn, went as far as to hire Eric Schmidt's ex-girlfriend to help out its tech practice. Revenge is a dish best served with a summons from the antitrust cops.

Right now Clinton owes $2.3 million for making those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, which earned her the traditional ladies' job in the White House. Every dollar is owed to Mark Penn, the fat bald man who micro-polled her campaign into oblivion and just discovered blogs.

So she's holding a contest. For as little as $10, you can win one of the following prizes—which would you choose?

Spend a day with President Clinton in New York City
"A truly once in a lifetime chance: you and a guest will spend a day with President Clinton and a weekend of fun filled adventure in New York."
"A day with President Clinton" is sex slang for something, right?

Attend the American Idol season finale
"You and a guest will watch live as the American Idol judges make their final comments and decisions on this year's most anticipated season finale!"
Fox is still in the tank for Hillary.

Spend a weekend in Washington, D.C. with James Carville and Paul Begala
"We'll fly you to our nation's capital for a politically filled weekend to see the nation's capitol and spend time with James Carville and Paul Begala—two of this city's best political gurus."
Yes, your weekend will be "politically filled." Also, tediously filled, self-importantly filled, and hideously filled.

Take your pick, losers!

Did you know that in America, professional bloggers outnumber professional bootblacks, zebra trainers, and circus clowns—combined? Mark Penn did, so write him a fucking check! But wait—Mark, can you illustrate your point using a line lifted from a readily identifiable musician?

That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click — whether on their site or someone else's. And that's nearly half a million of whom it can be said, as Bob Dylan did of Hurricane Carter: "It's my work he'd say, I do it for pay."

Great! So anyhow lots of these pro bloggers make literally thousands of dollars per year (not to brag but we are now almost totally off food stamps. Thanks blogging!) So if you're in a defunct profession like, say, managing Hillary Clinton's campaign, why not consider becoming a blogger for big bux? MarkPennTriesTheMichaelPhelps12000CalorieDiet.Blogspot.Success!
[WSJ. Pic: CtW]

Are you still getting emails begging for money for Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign? Yes? You sucker. Well don't give her one gaddamn dime because the one outstanding debt is to Penn, Schoen, & Berland Associates LLC. This is the Mark Penn market research and polling firm that helped make Hillary Clinton our nation's not-44th President! And Hillary still owes them $2,307,740.82 for coming up with that brilliant "I am the only person who can win this race because I'm white" strategy.

Not surprisingly, many Clinton allies are decidedly unsympathetic to Penn's situation. Fumes one: "He should have to eat it." But it isn't that simple. The money is owed not to Penn personally but to his company, which is a subsidiary of the worldwide public relations and advertising firm WPP Group, based in London. The bills the Clinton campaign ran up included $5 million for the polling that apparently failed to pick up on the public mood. And then there was the cost of sending out 20 million pieces of direct mail, with postage alone reaching $8 million, according to an official for the firm. Many would argue that it was money ill-spent. At a minimum, that big a bill for snail mail suggests that Clinton's campaign was relying heavily on tactics from the 20th century, while Obama was running circles around her by using the far more cost- (and politically) effective Internet.

Of course, as Ezra Klein points out, the Clintons are fucking rich, so it's unclear why, if they insist on making sure Mark Penn gets his cash for being a pathetic, out-of-touch loser, they don't just pay him with Bill's Burkle money or something. That would seem a little more morally defensible than asking your broke-ass donors to continue helping you pay the man whose work made their candidate fuck up what shoulda been her race to win!

DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS (AND MIKE BLOOMBERG) BE ADVISED: if you're at Union Pool and the bartender hands you a cocktail napkin from "Microtrend Jordan" reading "I want to give your campaign a winning media strategy with my mouth" alert the authorities immediately.

Ari Fleischer may indeed be the single most irrelevant empty suit PR man masquerading as a political commentator today; but the combination of masterful Obvious Thing Repackager Mark Penn and superficially wholesome yet morally vacant Poor Shoe-Dodger Dana Perino together in the offices of Whitewasher of All Things Evil Burson-Marsteller truly makes that firm the industry leader in plain idiocy, corporate hustling, and the eschewing of all ethical thought.

We hope this clarifies the situation for you. [WSJ. Pic via]