Interesting to finally find some commentary on a guy who brings himself up by destroying other people.
Last year, a former associate decided to get revenge against me by leaking information about me to Hamilton Nolan, who branded me "America's Laziest Freelancer." Needless to say, it was such a horrible shock that I neglected to do what I should have done--fought back. He's the lazy one! He never contacted me for my side of the story. He took a practice that I have done for years without incident and twisted it to make me look like an unprofessional, clueless newbie. After his article, a hate-filled blog attacking me for everything sprang up.
Unfortunately, Gawker's reporters protected by the Constitution, abusing freedom of the press. I worked for years to achieve a certain level of success, only to have it attacked by somebody I never met, based on vicious gossip from a former writing partner who wanted to eliminate her competition.
I have a very nice web site, recommendations from editors and other kudos, but like Herpes, this Gawker thing has made me the journalism version of box office poison. The recession has probably had the greatest impact on my current struggles, but the branding and attack--and the fact I cannot get this scar off the search engines certainly does not help.
Thank you so much for exposing this Gawker.
More important than any of the PR nonsense: who shrank Hamilton Nolan's head?
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!
Interesting. There's an element to this story that I believe is missing (unless I missed it). Gawker now pays its writers by the number of views their posts receive. The more fiery and controversial a post, the more people read it, the more the writer gets paid.
From The New York Times: “You get focused on being sensational and even more brain candyish than Gawker was to start with,” said former Gawker editor Emily Gould of the pay structure.
This is no defense of Edelman, more a defense of good journalism. Nolan's reason for writing something outrageous is perhaps the same as Edelman's reason for allegedly instructing someone to lie--money.
Here is the Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/
0...ref=todayspaper
This’ll be one of those corny comments that will make you and your readers roll eyes – but as I process all this stuff about Edelman, and all the stuff written over the last few years (Wal-Mart and Vista/Microsoft laptop fiascos) – I think Edelman is in need of a good PR firm.
Disengagement: I recently trashed an arm of Edelman in my blog. From stats I could see that they were all over it. But being a “D” lister they ignored me completely. No call from Richard. (My tongue was in my cheek as I wrote that.) Of course, there was no need to ‘engage’ me – because my blog isn’t high-profile.
I’m in advertising – and I often tell clients that they need PR. I’m a big fan of professional, transparent PR. There is an art and a craft required when talking to the public. It’s much better for clients and the public if someone knows how to explain things.
That said – even you haven’t convinced me (yet) that Edelman is an ethical PR firm. They give me the heebie-jeebies.
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