In an ongoing effort to call out the PR tactic of silence which
started with a focus on SimCity, Rock Paper Shotgun points out that after the public outcry, controversy, and an apology from Deep Silver which concluded "we want to reiterate ... how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again", the special edition of Dead Island: Riptide which includes a statue of a woman's severed torso
silently went on sale anyway.
[more inside]
posted by gilrain
on Apr 25, 2013 -
38 comments
Daily Telegraph:
Why the world isn't running out of oil:
"Moreover, as well as bountiful oilfields in North America, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other producers in the Middle East, there are massive, barely tapped reserves in South America, Africa and the Arctic: not billions of barrels’ worth, but trillions. So the planet is not about to run out of oil. On the contrary, according to a Harvard University report published last year, we are heading for a glut.
The 75-page study, by oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, was based on a field-by-field analysis of most of the major oil exploration and development projects in the world, and it predicted a 20 per cent increase in global oil production by 2020."
[more inside]
posted by Wordshore
on Feb 21, 2013 -
69 comments
Did the Met betray rape victims to avoid bad PR? "Former Metropolitan Police officer -- and Lib Dem mayoral candidate -- Brian Paddick has appeared at the Leveson Inquiry, and his witness statement contains an astonishing allegation against his ex-employers.
In a section about the Metropolitan Police Service's attempt to improve its image in the media, Paddick details the "negative commentary" on Ian Blair after he took over as Met commissioner. "The Met went from being very open to being almost paranoid," he writes.
One of the consequences of this, he adds, was that he was asked to "water-down" a report critical of the Met's handling of rape cases."
[more inside]
posted by marienbad
on Mar 9, 2012 -
13 comments
PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms - "You would go into these hearings and there would be more PR people representing these big players than there were reporters, sometimes by a factor of two or three" ..it's getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story.
posted by thisisdrew
on Jul 12, 2011 -
43 comments
February 25, 2011: Vogue calls her "a rose in the desert": "
Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies."
(Wikipedia about her
husband: "He has been criticized for his disregard for human rights, economic lapses, sponsorship of terrorism, and corruption.")
[more inside]
posted by iviken
on Feb 27, 2011 -
25 comments
MAC Cosmetics and Rodarte partnered to create a makeup collection. Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sisters behind Rodarte,
"were struck by the ethereal landscape and the impoverished factory workers floating to work at dawn in a sleepy, dreamlike state." People started
questioning the
sensitivity and
intelligence behind the naming, particularly a glittery pink nailpolish named Juarez.
[more inside]
posted by nadawi
on Aug 3, 2010 -
31 comments
Colonel Muammar al-Gadaffi, Leader and Guide of the Revolution, has been consulting with two US-based PR / lobbying companies—
The Livingston Group (Sourcewatch) and
Monitor (
Sourcewatch)—to effect the rebranding of Gadaffi's Libya as a desirable and trustworthy ally of the United States. Confidential documents from these consultations have been
obtained and posted online by a Libyan opposition group called NCLO. They include fee quotes, progress reports, and mission plans, as well as a personal tutorial curriculum for Gaddafi's son. Via
LRBlog [more inside]
posted by stammer
on Jul 29, 2009 -
27 comments
A geek named daniel_k wanted to help his fellow Vista users. He created a set of drivers that would get their Creative sound cards working under Vista -- something beyond the ken and expertise of Creative's engineering team. Creative VP Phil O'Shaughnessy, however, took umbrage. The results?
A PR disaster with hundreds of users pledging to boycott.
posted by ed
on Mar 30, 2008 -
66 comments
Is there no humor in public relations? The public relations blog PRBlogNews included a post last week on PR and LSD (
a long strange happy tradition). It appears to have been a joke, mixing a selection of early youth-on-acid videos with a vintage discourse about LSD by Dr. Richard Alpert (later
Ram Dass) re-imagined as a history of successful "tripvertising." It must have stirred some sort of trouble; there's been a follow-up, "LSD and PR don’t mix" post (
Don’t eat the brown acid) which warns
against mixing PR and LSD (and hot dogs).
posted by mmahaffie
on Aug 14, 2007 -
11 comments
Owen Wilson has denied any connection between his new movie, "You, Me and Dupree," and '70s supergroup Steely Dan, a spokesman for the actor said Friday.
The band recently posted a letter on their Web site claiming that Wilson's Dupree character was based on their Grammy-winning song, "Cousin Dupree," about a couch-hopping houseguest.
In a statement released by his spokeswoman, Ina Treciokas, Wilson said: "I have never heard the song `Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, `HEY 19.'"
posted by wfc123
on Jul 29, 2006 -
62 comments
A Peek Under the PR Mask Once in a blue moon, we actually get a peek under the White House's public-relations mask, and this morning it comes courtesy of Peter Baker and Dan Balz , whose front-pager in The Washington Post suggests that Bush's unflagging public confidence about his Iraq policy reflects the work of public opinion researchers.
posted by Postroad
on Dec 5, 2005 -
25 comments
Bush teleconference with troops staged. Nothing in the article says
who is responsible for organizing the staged question and answer session, The White House, military officials, or others in the defense department. Just that it infact was staged, and that the troops were coached for 45 minutes prior to the actual teleconference. When Bush, in an unscripted move, asked an officer if he had anything to say, he stammered through a sentence, in stark contrast to the well put together responses to all the other questions, thanking the President and saying, "I like you." More PR from the Bush administration.
posted by SirOmega
on Oct 13, 2005 -
173 comments
