Exxon Mobil to boost its PR spending
Or maybe the headline should read “Exxon Mobil to boost its PR spinning,” according to a recent article in PR Week that was critiqued by The Weekly Spin. The Weekly Spin writes, “After enjoying the largest profits of any company, ever, in 2005, Exxon Mobil has the resources — and the need — for expanded […]
TheStreet.com options being exercised by Cramer, CEO
The online business news site announced today that Mad Money host Jim Cramer, who helped found the site, and CEO Tom Clarke, plan to exercise options to purchase stock in the company and sell those shares. Cramer will give his shares to a foundation. The web site states, “In addition, Cramer intends to donate 100,000 […]
Friedman reviews Chronicle's Enron trial coverage
Jon Friedman, who writes a regular media column for Marketwatch, examined the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the Enron trial this morning. Friedman writes: “There are two inherent challenges: a) It’s expected to last a minimum of four months, longer if the defense counsel has its way, and b) This is basically an ACCOUNTING trial, so […]
Chicago Trib killed story on CEO compensation last May
That’s the allegation made today by Geoff Dougherty, a former reporter at the Chicago Tribune, who researched and wrote an article about CEO compensation for the Tribune last year in which parent company Tribune Co. CEO Dennis FitzSimons figured into prominently because of his large compensation package. Dougherty, in a post on the ChiTown Daily […]
LA Times editors meet with union officials
Officials from the United Farm Workers, the subject of a critical four-part series in the Los Angeles Times last month, met with editors from the paper, including Editor Dean Baquet, recently, according to the Web site Truthdig. The series has been criticized by others, including in an op-ed piece in the Times last month. Baquet […]
Critic: Saturday Wall Street Journal is a beached whale
Hamilton Nolan of PR Week has harsh words for the Wall Street Journal, specifically its new Saturday edition, which debuted last year. He fears that the Saturday edition, plus other changes to the business newspaper, are the beginning of a downslide. Nolan writes: “The easily accessible index will make negative news buried on the inside […]
Telco, upset with biz columnist, drops ads in SF Chronicle
John Battelle, director of the business reporting program at Cal-Berkeley, notes on his blog that SBC, which is now AT&T, has dropped advertising in the San Francisco Chronicle because the telecommmunications company is upset with biz columnist David Lazarus. Battelle, one of the co-founders of Wires magazine, writes, “Sure, a company has the right to […]
Fatigue sets in for covering Enron trial
The Houston Chronicle’s Mark Tolson notes that most of the national media has tired already of covering the Enron trial that is now in its second week and is expected to last for months. Wrote Tolson: “It’s a far cry from the early days, when news organizations tried to outdo each other with tales of […]
Critiquing NYTimes coverage of commodities
In Sunday’s New York Times, writer Conrad De Aenlle wrote about commodities such as oil, copper, lumber and gold, wondering whether they were the next bull market. De Aenlle stated, “A widely followed benchmark of commodity prices, the Commodity Research Bureau index, reached a record high recently after nearly doubling since late 2001. Shares of […]
British Independent newspaper tries to devise new stock listing
Jeremy Warner of the Independent, a London-based newspaper, notes that the paper has been trying to come up with a better stock index to gauge the performance of the London market, but without much success. Warner writes, “Tricky things, stock market indices, as the business reporting team at The Independent has discovered in attempting to […]
