A Fortune 500 business believes the financial media has focused unfairly on a small change in accounting practices rather than significant increases in revenues.
* Abrams Research can bring together top financial journalists to advise that business on how to best convey its message.
I understand this is a hypothetical case, but I'm curious -- could this small change in accounting practices have affected the amount of revenues reported?
I must admit this is my first visit to your site and I would hope that the rest of the pieces don't contain the sorts of fundamental errors and "spin" contained here.
1) I am no longer a "journalist" at NBC. Rather I am an outside analyst just like every other outside political and/or legal analyst at every other network. They have outside clients and/or they work for private entitites and so do I.
The "Center for Media and Democracy" got that basic fact wrong? Wow.
2) Just because others have falsely reported that we may be recruiting full time journalists from the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, for example, does not make it so. One might think the "Center for Media and Democracy" would have reached out to me for some sort of comment. Maybe that demands too much from this "Media" and is too "Democratic."
The first line of our employment agreement reads as follows:
"you must review every employment, consulting and other agreement to which you are a party, and all employee manuals and other codes and policies by which you are bound to ensure that you are able to fully participate. . .you represent to Abrams Research that your execution and delivery of this agreement. . . does not and will not breach or conflict with any other agreement, arrangement, understanding or employment or other relationship to which you are or become a party."
As a result, no full time employee bound by a manual that prohibits outside work as they have at the Journal, the New York Times and NBC will be part of our network. Period.
Freelancers or part timers, on the other hand will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. If any conflict exists they will not be part of that project. Period.
With media organizations severely cutting back on full time staffers we have a huge pool of smart, talented, experienced reporters, execs, and others available to us.
Furthermore if you had called for comment or even perused the web site at www.abramsresearch.com you would have seen that much of our business is not related to pure "media strategy."
When the Mormon Church is sued for millions of dollars because homosexual Scout leaders abused Scouts, isn't it prudent to make sure such behavior isn't facilitated further? Is it "anti-gay" to avoid future lawsuits?
Tarring all homosexuals with the brush of pedophilia -- I'd call that pretty heavy handed.
I think I know what the Mormon leadership's problem is: they look around at, for example, the Episcopal church, and they see a bishop who's openly gay and a chief bishop who's a woman and the Episcopal church in schism because of it, and they imagine what could happen to their own rigid, male-privileged, authoritarian rule if tolerance spread too far.
You'd think in view of their own harrowing history Mormons would have learned to respect the rights of others to liberty and pursuit of happiness in a pluralistic, all-embracing society, but apparently not. The commercial makes that point aptly, IMO.
I read the "about us" for the Center for Media and Democracy after having read the comments here on the "Mormon Proposition" and think your goal of "investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda" ought to start with your own machinery. You claim that Mormon participation in the electoral process was "heavy handed." How is the Mormon Church opposing something it considers to be hostile to its teachings, "heavy handed?" Is free speech only theoretical?
When the Mormon Church is sued for millions of dollars because homosexual Scout leaders abused Scouts, isn't it prudent to make sure such behavior isn't facilitated further? Is it "anti-gay" to avoid future lawsuits?
The reference to a "leaked internal memo" sounds nefarious except for the fact that the memo was read in every LDS congregation in America and posted on its official web site.
The commercial you claim "highlights the Mormon role" in promoting Proposition 8 is absolutely dishonest. It portrays Mormon missionaries as invading the home of a lesbian couple, searching their home and destroying property--actions that factually mirror the fascist actions of anti-Mormon protesters who have invaded churches and destroyed property after having lost a legal *democratic* election.
Just what part of democracy are you supporting by posting such blatantly dishonest and anti-democratic propaganda?
Those opposed to same-sex marriage (or even civil unions) claim its proponents are shoving their beliefs down their throats, while supporters say opponents are shoving their beliefs down theirs. So there appears to be a gaping, unmet need for legal definitions that distinguish with unequivocal epistemological rigor between beliefs and throats.
In the meantime, if the state has a God-given mandate to uphold the sanctity of one sacrament, to wit matrimony, it must surely have no lesser duty to uphold the sanctity of all sacraments. The most urgent case is that of baptism. Traditionally, baptism has always been performed on the living, but now it appears that the Mormon church is making a mockery of traditional baptism by ghoulishly "baptizing" dead people:
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/mormon/baptism/
The Mormons say that they are not forcing their baptism on anyone, since "...each deceased soul has the personal choice to accept or reject it. There is nothing in Mormonism that states that the person who is being baptized by proxy must accept this ordinance; he or she is simply given the opportunity to choose."
Well, each party to a same-sex marriage is given the opportunity to choose as well, but that does not make same-sex marriage any more acceptable to the Mormon church. So simple logic dictates that if same-sex marriage violates and degrades the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, then "baptism" of the dead, even with the consent of the deceased soul, violates and degrades the sanctity of traditional and holy baptism of the living. The state must not permit this travesty to continue, or it will surely lead to terrible consequences for all of society!
From your website:
I understand this is a hypothetical case, but I'm curious -- could this small change in accounting practices have affected the amount of revenues reported?
I must admit this is my first visit to your site and I would hope that the rest of the pieces don't contain the sorts of fundamental errors and "spin" contained here.
1) I am no longer a "journalist" at NBC. Rather I am an outside analyst just like every other outside political and/or legal analyst at every other network. They have outside clients and/or they work for private entitites and so do I.
The "Center for Media and Democracy" got that basic fact wrong? Wow.
2) Just because others have falsely reported that we may be recruiting full time journalists from the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, for example, does not make it so. One might think the "Center for Media and Democracy" would have reached out to me for some sort of comment. Maybe that demands too much from this "Media" and is too "Democratic."
The first line of our employment agreement reads as follows:
"you must review every employment, consulting and other agreement to which you are a party, and all employee manuals and other codes and policies by which you are bound to ensure that you are able to fully participate. . .you represent to Abrams Research that your execution and delivery of this agreement. . . does not and will not breach or conflict with any other agreement, arrangement, understanding or employment or other relationship to which you are or become a party."
As a result, no full time employee bound by a manual that prohibits outside work as they have at the Journal, the New York Times and NBC will be part of our network. Period.
Freelancers or part timers, on the other hand will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. If any conflict exists they will not be part of that project. Period.
With media organizations severely cutting back on full time staffers we have a huge pool of smart, talented, experienced reporters, execs, and others available to us.
Furthermore if you had called for comment or even perused the web site at www.abramsresearch.com you would have seen that much of our business is not related to pure "media strategy."
This is how you "promote" "media literacy?"
I would expect a prompt correction.
Sincerely,
Dan Abrams
CEO
Abrams Research
I read the "about us" for the Center for Media and Democracy after having read the comments here on the "Mormon Proposition" and think your goal of "investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda" ought to start with your own machinery. You claim that Mormon participation in the electoral process was "heavy handed." How is the Mormon Church opposing something it considers to be hostile to its teachings, "heavy handed?" Is free speech only theoretical?
When the Mormon Church is sued for millions of dollars because homosexual Scout leaders abused Scouts, isn't it prudent to make sure such behavior isn't facilitated further? Is it "anti-gay" to avoid future lawsuits?
The reference to a "leaked internal memo" sounds nefarious except for the fact that the memo was read in every LDS congregation in America and posted on its official web site.
The commercial you claim "highlights the Mormon role" in promoting Proposition 8 is absolutely dishonest. It portrays Mormon missionaries as invading the home of a lesbian couple, searching their home and destroying property--actions that factually mirror the fascist actions of anti-Mormon protesters who have invaded churches and destroyed property after having lost a legal *democratic* election.
Just what part of democracy are you supporting by posting such blatantly dishonest and anti-democratic propaganda?
Those opposed to same-sex marriage (or even civil unions) claim its proponents are shoving their beliefs down their throats, while supporters say opponents are shoving their beliefs down theirs. So there appears to be a gaping, unmet need for legal definitions that distinguish with unequivocal epistemological rigor between beliefs and throats.
In the meantime, if the state has a God-given mandate to uphold the sanctity of one sacrament, to wit matrimony, it must surely have no lesser duty to uphold the sanctity of all sacraments. The most urgent case is that of baptism. Traditionally, baptism has always been performed on the living, but now it appears that the Mormon church is making a mockery of traditional baptism by ghoulishly "baptizing" dead people:
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/mormon/baptism/
The Mormons say that they are not forcing their baptism on anyone, since "...each deceased soul has the personal choice to accept or reject it. There is nothing in Mormonism that states that the person who is being baptized by proxy must accept this ordinance; he or she is simply given the opportunity to choose."
Well, each party to a same-sex marriage is given the opportunity to choose as well, but that does not make same-sex marriage any more acceptable to the Mormon church. So simple logic dictates that if same-sex marriage violates and degrades the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, then "baptism" of the dead, even with the consent of the deceased soul, violates and degrades the sanctity of traditional and holy baptism of the living. The state must not permit this travesty to continue, or it will surely lead to terrible consequences for all of society!
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