Image consultants are praising Martha Stewart's bid to get public opinion on her side and to influence potential jurors, reports the Associated Press. The campaign includes a national newspaper advertisement and a new website, marthatalks.com [3], that went up the day Stewart was indicted in federal court for securities fraud and lying to authorities.
Eric Dezenhall, who runs a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm that specializes in damage control, said the website and controlled message are critical. "She doesn't have a whole variety of options to make people who dislike her like her," Dezenhall told AP. "What she can do is put a press on the Justice Department by having her supporters hammer the narrative that this is a witchhunt." Stewart has hired Citigate Sard Verbinnen [4], a New York-based firm that specializes in corporate crisis communications and mergers and acquisitions, for her public relations effort.