Wednesday, August 17, 2011
THE FRIDAY FIVE O'CLOCK FOLLIES
The Federal Government as well as most major corporations long ago discovered a wonderfully easy way to bury unpleasant news that they hope never comes to the attention of most people: the Friday evening press conference.
By three P.M. on Friday almost everyone is packing up to get out of the office and onto the pleasures of the week end. Rather than conceal the really bad news, the "Powers that Be" choose to send an underling to announce the bad news. After all, with the name reporters from both the print and electronic media gone, the briefing by the Fourth Under Secretary of The Treasury will only be attended by cub reporters and interns. The story is then buried under all the human interest stories and puff pieces that were prepared earlier in the week to fill in for the lack of hard news. By the following week the story is old news and will be forgotten in the hurly-burly of the ongoing circus.
If someone manages to dig out the story later and attempts to bring it into the spotlight, it will be dismissed as old news and not worthy of attention. It is truly amazing how many really important stories managed to get buried in the weekend follies.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
WHEN PROTESTS ARE IGNORED
Get beyond the idea of the media. Do something they can't ignore.
In the Miami/Ft lauderdale market there have been MoveOn and other protests where hundreds of people showed up and no media coverage. At one large protest a local station [The locals are Network owned] sent a team that did over an hour's worth of taping with inteviews. It ended up as a 20 second piece just before the commercal break leading into the sports roundup on the 11 PM News.
As Boss Tweed said: "In politices the first thing is money; I forget what the second is."
I have been campaigning for a "NO SHOPPING DAY" on the 1st Saturday of each month. This will work. On Tuesday Aug 2nd the Consumer Spending report showed a decline of 00.2%. The Dow fell over 265 points! YEAH! It does get attention.
If even 20% of the public quit spending money -- in malls, on line, and paying bills --on the 1st Saturday of each month, things would begin to change. The reasons for the 1st Saturday are twofold: [1] It is easy to remember, and [2] there are more complex economic reasons that would give this act maximum impact, but would be beyond the scope of this post.
THINK!! ACT!!!
The secret of getting things done is to act!
Dante Alighieri
In the Miami/Ft lauderdale market there have been MoveOn and other protests where hundreds of people showed up and no media coverage. At one large protest a local station [The locals are Network owned] sent a team that did over an hour's worth of taping with inteviews. It ended up as a 20 second piece just before the commercal break leading into the sports roundup on the 11 PM News.
As Boss Tweed said: "In politices the first thing is money; I forget what the second is."
I have been campaigning for a "NO SHOPPING DAY" on the 1st Saturday of each month. This will work. On Tuesday Aug 2nd the Consumer Spending report showed a decline of 00.2%. The Dow fell over 265 points! YEAH! It does get attention.
If even 20% of the public quit spending money -- in malls, on line, and paying bills --on the 1st Saturday of each month, things would begin to change. The reasons for the 1st Saturday are twofold: [1] It is easy to remember, and [2] there are more complex economic reasons that would give this act maximum impact, but would be beyond the scope of this post.
THINK!! ACT!!!
The secret of getting things done is to act!
Dante Alighieri
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