Propaganda for Big Business - Woot!!

I'll say one thing for Dan Abrams, he sure knows how to get tongues wagging when he wants to!

From Gawker: So, former MSNBC guy Dan Abrams is starting a "consulting" firm full of random media people to give advice to rich corporate clients about how to handle media-related issues. Do you know what that's called? It's called a PR firm. But this PR firm would never call itself that, because that would make the media people it employs sound corrupt. The thing is, this firm's business plan is so annoying that the rest of the media (us) is going to cover its clients even harder to make up for it.

LOLOL Too right. Dan's new propagandaconsulting firm raises all of my journalistic integrity flags. The more I sit and think about it, and argue in my head about it, the more icky it makes me feel. Like, I get it. I can see where Dan's thinking came into this and how all of his friends (those extremely rich, wealthy corporation owners he pals around with) agreed with him. Dan is, first and foremost, a lawyer. And I think his interest in business and entrepreneurship far exceeds his interest in journalism. He's a fabulous commentator and, I think, a great investigative journalist when it comes to legal matters. And I have no doubt that he has crossed ever "T" and dotted every "i" with regards to this new endeavor of his, especially considering his father is the top First Amendment lawyer in the country. Hell, Floyd has probably gone over every single minute part of Dan's overall business plan.

BUT!

That doesn't mean I think he should be encouraging journalists out there to jump into the consulting business of telling Big Business how to win-over, ie snowball, the general public and get around the bloggers. I mean, hell, right there on the firm's website it says, big and bold, "Get bloggers to work for you and not against you". Dude, no, no, no and, uh, no.

And apparently, Rachel Sklar is like his internet PR gal, because she's jumping in to some blogs making excuses about how it's all above-board, and whatnot, and businesses will only be using the firm for advice on how to build social networking sites.

Excuse me while I laugh my friggin' ass off. Yes, Rachel. AR's first client, billionaire Ronald Perelman, is using AR to help him build a social networking site. WTFever.

Just what we really need out there. A consulting firm of journalists (led by a lawyer!) telling Big Business how to sell their liesbailoutsBS to us.

Boo, Danny-boy. Boo. I actually find myself looking forward to KO doing a special comment all about Abrams Research. And I'm honestly, seriously sick of KO's special comments. For this, I'll make an exception.