From The Onion:

OMAHA, NE -- Responding to the negative press coverage Tom Cruise has received in recent weeks, University of Nebraska financial-aid clerk Ben Matherson, 28, announced Monday that things would be different if he were the megastar's publicist.

Read Ben's advice here. Wow, and he's not even an APR ;)

In the wake of the controversy over explicit sex action embedded within "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has made the title only the 19th video game to receive the AO ("Adults Only") rating. Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others are pulling the title from their shelves.

The ESRB found that the sex scenes had been hidden in the game from the time of its launch last fall, and that hackers had not created the content later -- as the game's maker has claimed.

All of which begs two questions:

1. How sophisticated a regulatory system do we have when embedded content, available to children, is only discovered 10 months after a video game is released?

2. Doe this regulatory system really have teeth when only a handful of games have ever received the AO rating?

Exxon Mobil is not known for the subtlety (or effectiveness) of its public relations efforts on environmental issues. For most people, I'm afraid the company's "social responsibility" campaigns seem more like damage control than anything else.

Need an example? Via PR Watch:

Recognizing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington, ExxonMobil ran a quarter-page ad on the op-ed page of Monday's New York Times headlined "Saving Tigers." According to Exxon's website, the company has given more than $9 million since 1995 to efforts to save endangered tigers. Exxon has claimed the tiger as its brand mascot since the 1930s. While "preserving the endangered Bengal tiger" did make its way in to an early State Department press release on the summit, India's nuclear industry, the global war on terrorism and foreign investment in India were the dominate themes of the meeting. The agreement to help India further develop its nuclear energy capacity is part of a larger U.S.-India Energy Dialogue that also includes an Oil and Gas Working Group that "will endeavor to strengthen mutual energy security and promote stable energy markets." Several NGOs have targeted ExxonMobil, criticizing the company for violating human rights and destroying the environment.

Media Orchard entered the day fairly confident that every anti-establishment organization and credo of the '60s had long ago been absorbed (and rendered absurd) by the triumphant capitalist system. Well, we were wrong -- until now.

As Smoking Gun reports, the heirs of the Black Panthers are seeking to trademark the phrase "Burn Baby Burn" to market hot sauce.

For a little historical context, Huey Newton, founder of the Panthers, is the same political pundit who once said: "We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism."

While spinning in his grave, Newton might at least find some solace in the fact that this new capitalist venture is minority-owned.

From USA Today: "Food marketers hope veggies look fun to kids."

As Media Orchard has argued before, we can't lay the blame for our fat kids on food companies and their marketing. It's actually a relatively minor factor in the childhood obesity epidemic; you can read more here.

However, food companies are wise to address this issue from a public relations standpoint; otherwise, they can expect regulation and lawsuits -- which in this case, would solve nothing.

Self-appointed media vice cops Joe Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton are on the case again -- this time seeking an FTC inquiry into the now-infamous "Hot Coffee" modification of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," which enables players to engage in graphic cartoon sex as a fun supplement to the sleazy violence that is the game's focus.

I call this controversy criminally dopey not because I defend the game-makers; in fact, I think this content is gratuitous crap and, because it is directed at children, it is also harmful crap.

But Leiberman and Clinton's grandstanding only makes them look silly because

1) The sex scenes embedded in "Grand Theft Auto" have been available for months; did word just now get to D.C.? Even for non-gamers, video of the modification has been available to view on IFILM and elsewhere for some time. In fact, IFILM users have already watched it nearly 200,000 times -- after sitting through online advertisements by respectable corporate citizens such as SBC, DaimlerChrysler, Wendy's, and others.

2) Attacking an individual video game solves nothing, just as slapping CBS with a fine for Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction solved nothing. It's not a solution to the problem; it's an exploitation of the problem for political purposes.

For more thoughts on the problem of media sex and violence and potential solutions, read this.

Here's a nice piece on citizen journalism from Sunday's Post. Much of the story focuses on Your Mom, a Web site and weekly newspaper for teens created by Lee Enterprises, the mid-sized newspaper company.

Thanks to Steve Rubel for pointing out a new Nielson//NetRatings study that shows that two-thirds of blog readers don't actually realize they are reading a blog; it's just another Web site to them.

This finding indicates that blog readership statistics may be significantly understated.

By the way, as a point of clarification for my readers, Media Orchard is a blog.:) If you want to learn more about what a blog is, go here.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Now, more newspapers are warming to the idea of offering official reporter-written blogs. The Boston Globe is considering official blogs following the Mercury News's model. At the Dallas Morning News, more than 20 sports reporters contribute to a blog on the paper's Web site. Their posts must be screened by editors, but a spokesman said that requirement might be dropped.

The Exeter, Pa., police department is scaring up some bad PR in the wake of the killing of a giant snapping turtle over the weekend. Sgt. Len Galli shot the 50-pound turtle twice in the head after it wandered onto a residential lawn. Galli said the turtle was a threat to children.

According to the local paper:

"You're talking about a serious public relations nightmare when an officer shoots an animal," said Jason Carter, a certified wildlife control professional.

Animal advocates pointed out that the officer could have simply thrown a blanket on the turtle and then put it back in the water. Said an SPCA spokesperson: "Turtles are slow and cumbersome. It's not like they're going to catch up with you."

Galli hasn't helped himself with his response to local reporters. "It's not like it's an endangered species," he said with a laugh.

A friendly (and free) recommendation to the Exeter PD: get your public information officer on the case Monday morning.

(Edit 7-17-05: I've attached the image of a 50-lb. snapper suggested in one of the comments for this post.)

From the London Underground's "Poems on the Underground" program, which shares works of poetry in advertising spaces with the Tube's millions of passengers each year:

Earth hasd not anything to show me more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did a sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock or hill;
Ne`er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

--"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802," William Wordsworth

Another thoughtful piece in Columbia Journalism Review, this one on the topic of media bias. It eloquently makes the case for journalists who comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

As the writer puts it:

Reporters often seem perplexed by the venomous attacks directed at them. They have a hard time seeing that it is not so much the idea of bias that infuriates their critics as the refusal to admit any bias at all. That line is getting increasingly hard to toe, so I'll suggest an alternative that most reporters, of whatever political camp, might find acceptable: go ahead and admit an obvious bias -- a bias against power. It is a presumption in keeping with the profession's tradition of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Some may still call it liberal, and to the extent that it is suspicious of the status quo, they would be right in a way. But I am advocating admitting to an active suspicion of concentrated financial and political influence and those who stand to benefit from it, not the promotion of any particular ideology, cause, or agenda.

Via B.L. Ochman and Adrants: Check this one out. Now we know who goes to casinos.

Michael Massing has written an impressive piece for Columbia Journalism Review on the topic of sex and violence in the media, and the media's consistently superficial coverage of itself on this issue. Massing focuses most of his wrath on the Times , I suppose, because if that paper can miss the point with a culture staff of 100, it demonstrates the depth of the problem.

Here are a couple of choice excerpts. Re: the Times' coverage:

When Janet Jackson exposes her nipple during a halftime show, or desperate housewife Nicollette Sheridan drops her towel during an NFL promo, the paper will jump on the story ... But public concerns about popular culture run much deeper than such incidents, and point to stories that are not being written. In a poll of 1,001 parents conducted last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 17 percent expressed high levels of concern about the Janet Jackson incident. But 63 percent said they were "very concerned" that children are being exposed to too much inappropriate content in entertainment media, and another 26 percent said they were "somewhat concerned." As these figures show, it's not just conservatives who feel this way. "The vast majority of parents," said the foundation, "believe that sexual and violent content on TV contributes to children's behavior."

(Fox News Channel) hosts like Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson inveigh against "Hollywood" and the "liberal media elite" for inflicting lurid movies and vulgar sitcoms on the upstanding folks of middle America. Needless to say, they almost never mention the part that Rupert Murdoch's own companies play in this. Nor do they acknowledge that much of the proliferating junk they so strenuously condemn is served up by entertainment corporations seeking to maximize their profits according to the principles of the unfettered market -- the same market that these conservatives so noisily champion. This contradiction within conservatism is rarely examined by the Times or other newspapers.

Esther Wu scoffed at Norman Mailer's latest jabs in the New York Post today. She told me in an e-mail:

The issue is plain and simple: he called Ms. Kakutani a "token" and a "two-fer" and insinuated that her race was the only reason she was hire at the New York Times. Mr. Mailer forgets that like himself, Ms. Kakutani is a Pulitzer-prize winning writer.

Mr. Mailer's attempt to put up smoke screens with his essay on political correctness is a poor attempt at spin control. This issue began when he criticized Ms. Kakutani for publishing reviews of his books before they hit the shelves -- which he says are often negative and impacts book sales.

And from there Mr. Mailer's criticism became a personal attack on Ms. Kakutani, and in turn all women and all journalists of color by inferring that the only reason Ms. Kakutani was at the New York Times was because of her gender and her race. This is insulting and demeaning to all women and all people of color.

Esther Wu, Dallas Morning News reporter and current leader of the Asian American Journalists Association, decried as racist Norman Mailer's bashing of New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani as an "Asiatic, feminist . . . twofer . . . token."

Mailer defended himself in today's New York Post: "While my quarrel is with Kakutani, not Esther Wu, I will remark that political correctness is a toxic to American freedom. Over the last 20 years, it has certainly leeched out much of the initiative and integrity of the Democratic Party. I would go so far as to say that political correctness is totalitarian. It violates the old American liberty that you can make up your own mind, and then, even better, proceed to change it. That freedom is worth more to a good many of us than being told what we can say and not say. So, the Republicans, despite their endless catalog of evasions and hypocrisies, have profited from the ideological dead weight that liberals have taken on. As for being a racist, or next door to one, my response is not printable."

From Micro Persuasion: Backbone Media, a Boston-based Internet marketing consultancy, has published a detailed study on what makes a successful corporate blog.