great-moments-in-public-relations

Socialite's Nazi Publicist Called Sellout By Fellow Racists

Ryan Tate · 07/28/08 10:26PM

Earlier this month we wrote about how New York socialite Emilia Fanjul (pictured) hired as an executive assistant and charter-school press contact one Chloe Black, who marries and otherwise travels in white supremacist circles. The story was picked up by the Post and down in Palm Beach, and boy did the shit hit the fan! Among neo-Nazis, that is. Chloe Black, you see, told the Palm Beach paper, "I... do not agree with extremist or racially prejudiced views," even though she was once vice president of the Louisiana KKK and has attended a variety of white supremacist conferences recently, including one in Alabama in June. Perhaps she was trying to appease her boss Fanjul, who according to a Post source did not know about Black's history and who, as of July 18, has not fired her. In any case, commenters in racist Web forums — like the one run by Black's current husband! — are enraged at Black's professed non-bigotry, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports. A sampling:

The Socialite's Nazi Publicist

Pareene · 07/18/08 02:23PM

Ok guys, deep breaths. Do you know the Fanjuls? Pepe and his lovely wife Emilia? They're maybe the wealthiest Cuban-American couple in the nation. Emilia, a socialite about Palm Beach, the Dominican Republic, and, yes, New York, is famous for her charitable work. Recently she's made a couple headlines for her newest project—"helping to finance and build a sparkling new campus for Glades Academy, a charter school in the town of Pahokee, Fla.," a town full of impoverished migrant workers and their families. So it's odd, isn't it, that her "executive assistant" and publicist is a white supremacist.

Google to employees: No comment, and don't even try that "off the record" stuff

Owen Thomas · 02/01/08 01:24PM

Google PR überführer Elliot Schrage has issued a diktat, we hear: No comment! Google employees are forbidden to comment "officially or unofficially" on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Right. Like that makes any difference. We haven't been able to get any of our Google sources to stop laughing long enough to give us an opinion.

Privacy-obsessed social network's promoter proves public embarrassment

Mary Jane Irwin · 01/30/08 07:20PM

When you've got the buzz from Demo, Chris Shipley's startup conference, and $30 million in funding, it's hard to believe a startup would sink to spamming blogs with upbeat comments. But social network Moli, which hawks itself as a privacy-oriented alternative to Facebook, isn't above such base tactics. Blogger Sabrina Dent called the network on its spam-laden socializing, and was soon greeted with an overly enthusiastic proclamation of Moli's greatness. Turns out Moli's director of customer service, Daniel DiFiore, has been slinking about the Web, masquerading as Hawk5721, Moli evangelist. The goal, of course, is to delude people into thinking that Hawk5721's comments represent a surge of Internet users embracing Moli.

Facebook founder redefines "opt-in"

Paul Boutin · 12/02/07 12:34AM

People say the craziest things to New York Times reporters. In an attempt to explain that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn't, you know, lying when he implied to NYT staffer Louise Story that Facebook's Beacon ads wouldn't report on users' purchases and other activities unless they opted in to the system, "Matt Hicks, a Facebook spokesman, said Mr. Zuckerberg had meant that users would be given the opportunity to opt out of having information sent out by Beacon, and the company had assumed that anyone who didn't say no meant yes." As Story reports, Coke is having the same "Huh?" reaction, and has withdrawn from early participation in Beacon ads. I confess: I'm biased. I went to MIT, so whenever a Harvard man like Zuckerberg opens his mouth, I start listening for the bullshit. I wish I were wrong more often.

Dear PR flack, don't make us laugh

Nicholas Carlson · 11/29/07 03:28PM

Monica, Monica. First you rob me of all that I loved about PR — the illusion that you labor over each email you send to make it personal to me, just me. Now you're threatening to kill our relationship entirely by bringing in lawyers. Monica, how am I supposed to write the news without your help? How will I learn of the glories of your clients? But I think we can still make this work, Monica.

AT&T CEO says better iPhone coming next year

Nicholas Carlson · 11/29/07 01:42PM

Thinking about getting an iPhone as a gift for your loved ones this holiday season? Wait 'til next year! That's the message AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson delivered at a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara yesterday when he announced that a 3G iPhone would arrive next year. "You'll have it next year," Stephenson said. Way to help sales, Randall!

PR guy misses PR lesson from Guy Kawasaki

Tim Faulkner · 11/20/07 07:30PM

PR blogger Vince Bank is peeved that tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki is using Twitter to promote his startup Truemors, instead of giving him "personal insights." And he calls himself a PR guy? Kawasaki's fanboys accept and defend his self-promotion. Bank even misses the valuable lesson Kawasaki taught him when Bank's self-promoting post to Truemors was banned. He asks, "Is this a classic case of 'Do as I say, but not as I do?'" The answer is yes. Unlike Kawasaki, Bank just isn't brassy enough to get away with it.

PR guy's site links to bestiality, rape porn

Nicholas Carlson · 11/16/07 01:40PM

Richard Laermer of RLM PR is either into some really depraved adult entertainment. Or he's very lazy. That's the conclusion of fellow flack Peter Shankman, an early riser who was no doubt checking out Laermer's source code at 4 a.m. before going for a jog. The site's code reveals links to sites featuring bestiality and "nonconsensual sex," a cute little euphemism for rape porn. So how did Laermer let all that onto his site?

Apple flacks caught on tape acting like control freaks

Owen Thomas · 11/15/07 03:44PM



A British journalist attempts to ask Apple executive Phil Schiller a question about the effective iTunes monopoly on downloads for the iPhone. Apple's PR people jump in and try to end the interview, saying how they're "excited" about the iPhone and "want to stay focused." The problem? Their body language betrays them. This is why Apple is really screwed if it ever loses Steve Jobs: He's the only guy at Apple who can actually pull off this act and handle the press convincingly while parroting the party line. Everyone else at Apple who's even allowed to speak to reporters just ends up looking robotically defensive when they try to erect a Jobsian reality-distortion field.

Is Amazon.com supporting Google's Facebook killer? Don't ask

Tim Faulkner · 11/15/07 02:28PM

Read/WriteWeb last night reported that Amazon.com will announce today, among other things, support of Google's OpenSocial Web widget platform in all of its applications going forward. Now Google can tout Amazon's support for its rival platform to extend social networks. Or can it? Amazon flacks, after sending Read/WriteWeb a press release about the move, are now retracting it and claiming the company is not adopting OpenSocial. Or if it is, they're pretending they don't know about it.

Google's holiday party

Owen Thomas · 11/09/07 10:29AM

Did you get your pass to the Google Holiday Party? We understand. Email can be so unreliable. A helpful tipster saved us the trouble of digging through our Gmail spam filter to find our invitation. Don't know if we'll crash the December 12 event at the Googleplex. If it's like past parties, expect a room full of tiresomely cheery Google flacks and a drive-by appearance by Larry and Sergey. If you do get any founder face time, watch out: They'll likely bore you to tears with an explanation of why they call Web applets "gadgets" instead of "widgets." Not that you could use any of that conversation anyway, since the event is "off the record." Still want to go? After the jump, the full detail of the exclusive holiday soiree.

Chris Anderson hates receiving spam, benefits from sending it

Megan McCarthy · 10/31/07 08:00AM

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had it up to here with unsolicited emails from PR agencies. But he's the beneficiary when colleagues use the tactic. Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter notes that his inbox is filled with unsolicited emails from Wired flacks. Sent to an email address, Schachter points out, which is on his blog, not one he uses to sign up for mailing lists. Call it the Long Tail of PR. Whether or not Anderson approves, he certainly gains from the PR mail-all list: The most recent Wired message touts Wednesday's edition of the PBS show Wired Science, and the subject line highlights a special appearance by Anderson himself.

Wired editor in a snit over unsolicited emails

Megan McCarthy · 10/30/07 06:59PM

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had enough of unsolicited emails from PR professionals. So much so, that he posted a list on his blog of 329 PR Hester Prynnes, guilty of promiscuous overuse of their email outboxes. No more will their very unimportant missives waste his time — emails from these people will be summarily blocked. Among the guilty: Flacks from SparkPR, Edelman, Ogilvy, Weber Shandwick, SutherlandGold, Bite PR, and Text100. If you're wondering, Outcast, Hill & Knowlton, and Burson-Marsteller managed to escape Anderson's long flail. Prepare for lots of stories about Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, and Hillary Clinton in the next few issues of Wired.

Flack swears off Kool-Aid

Nicholas Carlson · 10/30/07 11:30AM

Last we heard from PR flack Steve Rubel, he was on his knees apologizing for publicly trashing PC Magazine. Now Edelman PR's spokesblogger wants the world to know he's sorry for inflating the Web 2.0 bubble. He writes, "Since I started this blog lots of people have rightfully made fun of how much I touted every little new site to come along. Their criticism is accurate." Don't worry, Steve. It's not your fault. You'd only be guilty if you'd actually succeeded at imitating Michael Arrington.

Comcast calls AP story "Web gossip"

Jordan Golson · 10/23/07 05:16PM

A reader emailed Comcast to complain about its blocking the Bible and received back a typical PR-speak response. Within was this gem: "We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our customers have the best broadband experience possible." Aha! I hadn't realized the "best broadband experience" excluded BitTorrent. That's Comcastic! Also a nice touch: Dismissing a story that ran over the Associated Press wire service as "web gossip." The full email after the jump.

Web 2.0, here we go

Paul Boutin · 10/16/07 09:00AM

In response to my public putdown of tomorrow's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, conference organizer Tim O'Reilly's publicist gave me a press pass to the three-day event. This is becoming like the plot of Dune — tricks within tricks within tricks! Look for my fawning, co-opted coverage at Rupert Murdoch's feet, starting 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.(Photo courtesy of Read/WriteWeb)