NYT Gives Mike Barnicle A Free Pass

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Big takeout in Sunday’s New York Times Business section on Bank of America bigfoot Anne Finucane.

The Image Officer With a Lot to Fix

IT’S show time for Anne M. Finucane.

Her co-star on this day, Bill Clinton, is waiting offstage. The audience shifts in its seats. The spotlight goes up and …action!

It’s a Thursday in early December, at a conference center near Orlando, and Ms. Finucane is busy shaping an image. Or, rather, trying to reshape one. This choreographed interview with the former president before a select group of businesspeople is, in fact, part of a much larger effort to rehabilitate one of the most demonized corporations in America.

That company is Ms. Finucane’s employer, Bank of America. Until recently, this colossus, assembled through a heady run of acquisitions, was the nation’s largest bank. But since the 2008-9 financial crisis, no big bank has lost more of its luster.

Today, Bank of America is often held up as a symbol of all that’s wrong with banking, from stick-it-to-’em fees to dubious home foreclosures. Investors have given it a black eye, too. Last year, its share price plummeted 55 percent, making it the biggest loser among the Dow industrials. The bank remains under unusually close scrutiny by regulators.

But the same can’t be said for the Times’ scrutiny of Finucane’s husband, Mike Barnicle.

Relevant excerpts:

[D]espite deep ties to Washington, as well as to Boston, where she and her husband, Mike Barnicle, are an A-list power couple, she isn’t having much fun these days . . .

Ms. Finucane got a job in Mayor [Kevin] White’s arts office, fresh out of the University of New Hampshire. [Massachusetts state treasurer Robert] Crane’s daughter, Mary Lou, later introduced Ms. Finucane to Mike Barnicle, then a columnist at The Boston Globe. Mr. Barnicle, nine years her senior, had three children from a previous marriage. He was also famous in political and media circles, having worked for Robert F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver. Before long, the couple married . . .

Ms. Finucane . . . supported her husband in the late 1990s, when he was accused of plagiarizing George Carlin jokes. He resigned from The Globe in 1998 and is now a contributor at MSNBC.

Really? The Times highlights Barnicle’s misdemeanor and ignores his felonies?

Anne Finucane’s got some serious juice, yes?

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Memes Go Better With Coca-Cola?

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Campaign Outsider Headscratcher o’ the Day (pat. pending)

Via Art Knowledge News (about a 125th anniversary Coca-Cola book):

New Illustrated Book Celebrates the World’s Most Iconic Coca Cola

NEW YORK, NY- This illustrated book celebrates the world’s most iconic beverage with the brand’s photographs, advertisements, and designs as well as memories from film, social history, and pop culture. Decade by decade, Coca-Cola represents the zeitgeist with nostalgia and flair. For 125 years, Coca-Cola has connected with more people in more places than any other product the world has ever known. First sipped at an Atlanta soda fountain as a hot weather pick-me-up, Coca-Cola has triumphed by engaging people, one by one. The company’s long-time leader Robert Woodruff sought always to have it “within arm’s length of desire.”

He succeeded so well that Coca-Cola has become a part of our landscape, part of our rituals, part of our lives. This illustrated book celebrates the world’s most iconic beverage with the brand’s photographs, advertisements, and designs as well as memories from film, social history, and pop culture. Decade by decade, Coca-Cola represents the zeitgeist with nostalgia and flair.

Sample nostalgic zeitgeist image:

Does that make any sense to you? That the Coca-Cola Company would promote such an image? In a book that retails for either $650 (according to Amazon) . . . or $65 (according to Assouline)?

The hardworking staff doesn’t get it.

Campaign Outsider Bonus Quote®:

“You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” — Andy Warhol.

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It’s Good To Live In A Two-Daily Town (Brown/Warren Kabuki Edition)

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

In reaction to the Super PAC Mania currently gripping the GOP presidential primary campaign, Massachusetts US Senate opponents Scott Brown (R-LL Bean) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Harvard Yard) are looking to rid their battle of outside-group influence.

From Saturday’s Boston Globe:

Brown, Warren in battle over ads

US Senator Scott Brown, stepping up his efforts to confront Elizabeth Warren, his Democratic challenger, sent her a letter yesterday, calling on her to denounce campaign ads from outside groups.

Warren reacted quickly with her own challenge, suggesting in her own letter that the campaigns draft an “enforceable agreement’’ on the issue. “We have the opportunity to set an example for the rest of the country. Let’s do it,’’ she wrote.

Likewise, from Saturday’s Boston Herald:

A potential deal would be similar to an agreement in the legendary 1996 clash between U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry and former Bay State Gov. William F. Weld. The pair pledged to cap spending in the race at $6.9 million, but each broke the deal.

Campaign Outsider Reality Check (pat. pending):

This is nothing like the Weld-Kerry deal, and there’s no possible “enforceable agreement” that can stop outside groups from running TV spots. (By law, candidates cannot coordinate with independent political groups.)

The Brown/Warren disarmament deal is a pipe dream that serves both campaigns, but does a disservice to the voting public.

And it’s a shame that neither the Globe nor the Herald notes that fact.

Maybe we need to live in a three-daily town?

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Dead Blogging “Superior Donuts” At The Lyric Stage

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

First, let us now praise the Lyric Stage Company of Boston for failing to install Tweet Seats in its Back Bay theater.

Absent all that Tweet Dreck, the play’s the thing . . .

And “Superior Donuts,” currently at the Lyric Stage through February 4, is – well – superior.

As the Lyric Stage website describes the Tracy Letts play:

In a shabby Chicago neighborhood, a downtrodden donut shop owner hires a street-savy [sic] aspiring young writer with hustle and bright ideas. Full of laughs and compelling characters, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of August: Osage County mixes the challenge of embracing the past with the redemptive power of friendship in this satisfying comedy-drama.

Actually, it’s a lot better than that.

The cast – from Will LeBow’s sad-sack shop owner to Omar Robinson’s edgy employee to Karen MacDonald’s lovestruck local cop to Steven Barkhimer’s Russki entrepreneur- is uniformly compelling, and the staging is sharp and dynamic.

Like a good donut, this terrific production sticks with you.

Don’t miss it.

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Parlez-Vous Romnais?

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Mitt Romney (R-Bonjour!) has contracted the French disease.

It’s an LTD (Linguistically Transmitted Disease) that also plagued John Kerry (D-Adieu), as this Newt Gingrich web video helpfully reminds us:

That’s drawn a variety of reactions, starting with the BBC’s deadpan review:

Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad – for speaking French.

The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry.

Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics.

Then there’s AlterNet’s take:

The French Connection: Absurd Gingrich Ad Uses Romney’s Bilingual Ability to Compare Him to Kerry

And finally, there’s all this.

As Kerry himself might say, Laissez les bon temps rouler!

(Full disclosure: The hardworking staff’s French was once described by a Paris waiter as brave.)

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Ladies’ Homemade Journal

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The outsourcing of news content continues apace, in this case with the venerable Ladies’ Home Journal.

From Advertising Age:

Ladies’ Home Journal Lets Readers Write the Magazine

Crowdsourcing has been common in advertising for some time, but in a highly unusual move, it’s now vaulting the wall at the venerable Ladies’ Home Journal, which is planning to turn over many of the pages in its 128-year-old publication to work written by readers.

The magazine will still use fact-checkers and include experts in fields such as medicine and beauty, but it will start with consumers where it can. “We really flipped this model,” said Editor-in-Chief Sally Lee. “Usually content creation begins with an editor. We have content creation that begins with a reader.”

Of which Ladies’ Home Journal has 3.2 million. That’s a really big crowd-sourcing.

And, the AdAge piece notes, “[u]nlike the Huffington Post, where many bloggers post without pay, Ladies’ Home Journal won’t tell its amateur writers to settle for the exposure. ‘We are going to pay them our professional rates,’ [Editor-in-Chief Sally] Lee said.”

Speaking of the Huffington Post, here’s its take:

The new approach is a huge shift away from LHJ’s tradition of offering professional advice on fashion, relationships and health, and interviews with cover ladies like Ann Curry and Robin Roberts.

The reaction to such a radical step has been fairly skeptical. “Ladies’ Home Journal is about to find out, in the harshest way possible, just how bad it can be,’ Fishbowl NY’s Chris O’Shea wrote. What do you think? Tell us in our poll below.

HuffPo’s vote: Definitely! No!

But it’s the AdAge subhead that really tells the tale:

Venerable Publication’s Bid to Attract Younger Audience May Cause Ripple Effect Among Mass Titles

To wit:

While other publishers have dabbled in the practice, its adoption by Ladies’ Home Journal, a title that guarantees advertisers an average paid circulation of 3.2 million, is significant since it is the largest traditional media brand to commit to so much user-generated content on an ongoing basis. If it’s successful, other mass-circulation titles may follow. “I’ve been asked a lot about whether we foresee this becoming a model that other magazines will start to implement,” said Diane Malloy, publisher of Ladies’ Home Journal. “My answer is, ‘Gosh, yes, I think everyone is going to sit up and take notice.'”

Is this good news for newslovers?

Gosh, no.

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Andrew Sullivan Says Mitt Romney Could Be Toast

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan believes the Bainific attacks on Mitt Romney might be fatal. From the Daily Beast Cheat Sheet:

Exhibit A: This New York Post piece that details Romney’s robber-baron  past in excruciating detail.

Hard to believe Romney won’t get the GOP presidential nomination, but Sullivan’s post does make you think.

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FaceSnookered: “Featured Stories” Are Just Ads in Sheep’s Clothing

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

In its endless efforts at misdirection, Facebook has turned its “Sponsored Stories” in your news feed (Sneak ADtack! Disclosure Index: 7 out of 10) into “Featured Stories” (Sneak ADtack! Disclosure Index: 1 out of 10).

From Advertising Age:

Facebook Looks to Rebrand News Feed Ads

Facebook began placing ads in users’ news feeds yesterday, a move that reverberated around the web when the company announced it last month as users fretted about how their experience on the social network would be sullied. Though not back-pedaling on the plan, Facebook is rebranding the units and has announced that news-feed advertising will be labeled “featured” instead of “sponsored.”

Sponsored stories were introduced a year ago and “are thought to be Facebook’s most effective advertising product because they’re built around friends’ endorsements,” according to Ad Age. And their introduction is accompanied by Facebook’s usual doublespeak:

“We are using the term ‘featured’ because we want to make it clear to people that they’re seeing content from a page or person they have chosen to connect to,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in an email.

File under: Two-Facedbook.

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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Gail Collins Say Seamus On Newt Gingrich

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

New York Times dogmatist Gail Collins weighs in with a Primary Primer today, and she’s not happy:

I am feeling totally cheated. The New Hampshire primary is over, and none of the Republicans went away.

This is not how things are supposed to work in America. Every week, one contestant is supposed to be eliminated. That’s the way it is in politics — one day you’re in, the next day you’re out. Why won’t these people leave?

Collins proceeds to answer a series of questions she made up, including “Why is Newt Gingrich still running for president? Aren’t voters fleeing from him as if he were a rabid palmetto bug?”

Her answer:

To understand Newt Gingrich, you have to envision a mixture of “Kill Bill” and “Carrie,” after Sissy Spacek gets hit with the bucket of blood. His only mission in life is getting even with Mitt Romney and the rich minions who paid for all those anti-Newt ads in Iowa. He is exactly like Sweeney Todd mixed with Charles Bronson in “Death Wish.” And maybe a smidge of “Shogun Assassin.”

Now Gingrich has roped in a few rich minions of his own, and you should watch the video they’ve just put out. Romney looks worse than the evil banker in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It’s full of heart-tugging former factory workers who used to have happy homes and wonderful Christmases until … Mitt Romney Came to Town. By the time it’s over, you will want to gather up the peasants and march on one of Romney’s mansions with flaming torches.

There is nothing Gingrich won’t do to get Mitt. At the end of the video, there’s a clip of Romney speaking French! And now Newt’s Web site has a video that basically asks whether America will elect a president who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car. Which is, of course, an excellent question.

Which, of course, Gail Collins made up.

(Tip o’ the pixel to splendid reader Laurence Glavine. Although it’s Collins’ Thursday column, not to get technical about it.) 

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New “Google Search Plus” Yields Unintended Results

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Google is turning the faceless Web into the Facelook Web with its new “personal search tool linked wih social media.”

From the Washington Post:

Google is taking Googling yourself to a whole new level, by folding users’ personal data into Google search results. The personalized search results pull data from users’ Google accounts such as Picasa and Google+, and offers users the option to toggle between searching their own personal data and searching the Web as a whole.

Super!

Just two problems:

Antitrust issues and privacy concerns.

Regarding the former:

• Twitter, a microblogging service that allows its users to broadcast short, 140-character messages to groups of “followers,” said Google’s changes would make it tougher for people to find the breaking news often shared by users of its service.

“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter. As a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results,” the company said in a statement.

“We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users,” the statement continued.

Twitter’s criticism, which came hours after Google announced new features aimed at making search results more personalized, underscored the growing competition between the Web companies. And it comes at a time when Google is facing antitrust scrutiny for favoring its own services within its search results.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to answer a question about whether the company might reach out to antitrust regulators about Google’s changes. (via Reuters)

• Google is diving deeper into personalized search results, debuting a feature called “Google Plus Your World”. But the debut of the service, which pulls results from your own content plus social circles from Google-owned services may catch the ire of regulators.

The company is fighting off calls on Capitol Hill over antitrust claims, and in September found itself testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Senators wanted to gauge the power the Mountain View, Calif. company has over the search industry, and favoring Google’s own service is sure to raise questions. (via betanews)

Capitol Hill, here you come, Googleniks.

Then there’s the privacy thing, as Search Engine Land points out:

The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.

However, Search Plus Your World may cause some privacy worries, as private content may appear as if it is exposed publicly (it is not). It might also cause concern by making private content more visible to friends and family than those sharing may have initially intended.

So, to summarize:

Google’s new search feature opens up new worlds of results for you.

Google’s new search feature shrinks the world of results for you.

Pick your poison.

Originally posted on the New! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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