Shep Smith ends interview in mid-sentence after guest admits conflict of interest

You don't see this too often.

Shep Smith's guest was an executive from security software firm Symantec. He was there to discuss the recent case involving Chinese hackers who reportedly gained access to some Gmail user accounts. Smith started to smell something fishy when the guest kept praising Google for "coming forward" with information about the incident.



[h/t TVNewser]

It didn't sound like Smith knew who the guest was before he read the intro as he was tossing to him.

I wonder how the Symantec exec came to be on the show in the first place. Did the Studio B producers reach out to him specifically? Was it set up through a PR firm representing Symantec and/or Google?

Either way, when Smith learned during the interview about the business relationship between the two companies, he was annoyed enough to shut the whole conversation down.

FDA to require shockingly graphic warning labels on cigarettes

This does not appear to be a joke. The FDA plans to require graphic warnings on cigarette packages about the health risks of smoking. The images are astonishing. Click through to see them. They cover half the surface of the cigarette package, and are blunt to the point of being shocking.

I imagine the heads of tobacco company executives are exploding over this. They are, no doubt, frantically calling their lobbyists to figure out what to do.

If this goes through, it would be the boldest regulatory action I have ever seen.

I can't wait to hear the arguments against it. What will tobacco companies and their supporters say?

"Cigarettes don't kill"? Please.

Senators and congressmen from tobacco-producing states will probably make the argument that the package labels will reduce sales and will, by extension, kill jobs. I guess Rush Limbaugh and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will find that persuasive.

Deepwater Horizon - A Paradigm-Changing Event

'Growing appreciation for P.R. on Madison Avenue'

From the New York Times:

THE recently acquisitive MDC Partners is at it again, with a deal that is indicative of the growing recognition along Madison Avenue of how much more interested marketers are becoming in using public relations to reach consumers.

Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners in New York, which is owned by MDC, is acquiring a majority stake in Kwittken & Company, a public relations agency in New York with annual revenue approaching $10 million and clients like Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, McGraw-Hill and Thomson Reuters.

The acquisition is costing MDC an estimated $10 million to $15 million. Kwittken will become an operating unit of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal, the second-largest MDC agency after Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Additional information about the deal is to be announced on Thursday by executives of Kwittken and Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal.

The transaction is the third in five months for MDC involving a public relations agency; the others were Sloane & Company in New York, in April; and Allison & Partners in San Francisco, in May. And it is the sixth deal over all for MDC since last September.

None of the six agencies in which MDC has bought majority stakes specialize in traditional ad tasks like creating television commercials. Rather, their specialties, in addition to public relations, include social media, database marketing, experiential marketing and analytics.

Marketers want “to find firms that can deliver performance,” said Miles S. Nadal, chairman and chief executive at MDC, which is based in Toronto, and public relations agencies are excelling in “understanding the changing dynamics of the marketplace,” as what happens with a campaign in social media and earned media has become as important as its presence in paid media and owned media.

As a result, Mr. Nadal said, “we love the P.R. space — social, blogging, crisis management, events.”

Politico: 'Republicans privately plot John Boehner-run House'

Is it just me or is the GOP setting some rather high expectations for November?

House Republicans have held a series of private discussions to plot their first moves if they win the majority in November — with plans to use spending bills and subpoenas to rein in President Barack Obama and satiate their own ravenous base.

Republicans recognize they won’t be able to do any broad governing even if they take back the House; they’d hold just one chamber of Congress, or at most one branch of government, if they also win the Senate. So officials familiar with the early discussions say they’ve centered on undoing key parts of the Obama agenda and repositioning Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility heading into 2012 – a mantle it surrendered during the big-spending Bush years.

The plans presently under discussion include defunding some parts of the new health care law and delaying implementation of others, withholding some of the unspent stimulus funds, and using the oversight power of Republican-led committees to investigate the Obama administration.

“The goal, obviously, would be to make it a one-term presidency,” said a GOP lobbyist briefed on the talks.

All this talk about Speaker Boehner is going to be hard to walk back from if the House remains in Democratic hands. Even a substantial pickup in seats for the Republicans will be perceived as a failure if they don't take control of the chamber.

But, maybe they know something that I don't.

'Police Seize More Than $50 In Wire From Nation's Wealthiest Crystal Meth Dealer'

Who says crime doesn't pay?


Police Seize More Than $50 In Wire From Nation's Wealthiest Crystal Meth Dealer

When did Jerry Springer's bouncer get his own talk show?

And how?