It’s official - Black is this year’s black: The NYT’s David Carr has the same questions I have about the cover of the Martha Stewart’s Living October issue I saw at a grocery store newsstand tonight. It’s the first with the big Living and little Martha Stewart, but that’s not the bizarre part. It’s the “Martha goes goth” thing that had me scratching my head.

Quote:

Gael Towey, creative director of the magazine, said that the cover was just a bit of Halloween fun and not an indication of any underlying grimness at the company. “We have never done a black cover,” she said. “Halloween seemed like a great time to be very bold. It’s a different time of the year and seems like it is a good time to dress up and be somebody else. And I love the crazy little creatures.”

Note to magazine art directors: If your CEO and founder and editor ever has to resign and go to a federal prison, don’t do your first black cover. No matter what the latest gimmick is.

rexblog bumper music: Monster Mash (The Misfits) [runner up: Martha Stewart (VaGiant)]

How Dan & Martha (and Nixon & Clinton) spiraled down the “Ten Stages of Spit Fan-Hitting”:

(Note: Around my house, there’s this word we discourage unless ones thumb is on the receiving end of a hammer blow. The discouraged word rhymes with the word spit. As my children are required to visit this weblog to click the rexblog affiliate iTunes store link when using that service, they may see this post and bookmark it for future evidence in defending themselves. Therefore, I’ll need for you to substitute the discouraged word whenever you read the word spit in the following.)

While I’d quibble with his comparison of Dan Rather’s value to the CBS News brand with Martha Stewart’s to the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia brand (there’s no comparison), Terry Keenan raises an interesting point by connecting Rathergate with Marthagate in the NY Post . However, I think the connection is less about business valuation (Keenan’s point) and more about the universality of certain truths in what PR folks call “crisis management” but what I’d call, “how you handle it with the spit hits the fan.”

Here’s how Martha & Dan (and for that matter, Nixon, Clinton and everyone else who fails miserably at it) lets it happen, what I’ll call:

Rex’s Ten Stages of Spit Fan-Hitting

1. Initial lapse in judgement (not the real spit)
2. Lapse becomes public (not the real fan)
3. Monomania-induced indignant denial via self-delusional explanation (the real spit)
4. Proof that indignant denial is delusional (the real spit hits the real fan)
5. A thousand points of spit
6. Self-righteous justification (more fan)
7. Awareness of the thousand points of spit
8. Admission (with or without personal acceptance) of the thousand points of spit
9. Public contrition & humiliation & punishment
10. Public redemption when contrition and punishment deemed equal by public to the real spit, or upon ones death

Later, I will chart out how Nixon & Clinton have made it through all ten stages of Spit Fan-Hitting and where Martha & Dan appear along the continuum.

rexblog bumper music: When the Funk Hits the Fan - Mood II Swing Vocal Dub (Sylk 130)

Major ink: Just now working my way through the old newsreader and am finally seeing that Jeff Jarvis got several trees-worth of paper and a few gallons of ink to let the readers of the NY Post know how old media is learning something from new media in the Danron (Rathergate?) controversy. Great Post-worthy subhead: “Little Brother is Watching.”

Quote:

Here’s what Dan Rather and CBS News should have done then:

They should have said to the bloggers, “Thank you — and welcome to journalism; we can use your help.”

They should have been grateful that smart citizens using weblogs had added to the available information and helped us get closer to the truth.

They should have engaged these bloggers in televised conversation.

They should have revealed everything they knew so we could judge the truth.

They should have admitted (in a day, not a week and a half) that they could be wrong.

But they didn’t. Instead, Rather and CBS issued the Big Media equivalent of I am not a crook — namely, “We stand by our story.”

You da man, Jeff.

rexblog bumper music: Little Brother (Hootie & the Blowfish)

I jinxed it, Steve, I’m sorry: I promise, Steve McNair, I promise you I’ll never again look up at the scoreboard at a Titans game and see there are nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and the game is tied 17-17 and think to myself, this is perhaps the greatest football game I have ever seen. I’m sorry, Steve, because you were playing this near flawless game and I knew immediately when I had that thought, that I had personally doomed the Titans. I feel responsible that nine minutes later, a game that looks on the stats page like a statistical deadheat, turned into a blow-out. Steve, you and Peyton Manning are obviously two of the greatest NFL quarterbacks playing the game today and seeing you on the same field was a treat. But, frankly, I’ve never really cared for Manning and we all know how, except for that little traffic incident, in my book you’re the greatest. So, my bad about thinking how great the game was before realizing what I’d done. I’m really, really sorry.

I must admit, Steve. For the first time ever, I was impressed today by Peyton Manning. Perhaps it’s because he toned down the happy feet for the game. Also, it’s still strange to me seeing the fans here in Tennessee screaming their heads off against Peyton Manning as I’m sure many of them have dogs, cats, sons and daughters at home named Peyton in his honor. Heck, even one of this weblog’s seven readers has a dog named Peyton. (Sorry, if you’re not a football fan, just trust me.)

Steve, my wife always hates the thought of the Titans losing at home, knowing I’ll be in a funk when I get home. Not today, I promised her before I left for the game. But I didn’t realize that it would be me, personally, that would cause you to lose the game. So, don’t be hard on yourself. Blame me…and, okay, if you insist, you can also blame the defense and those two chump fourth-and-inches you couldn’t convert.

Okay, folks who hate football. I’m finished.

rexblog bumper music: I’m Sorry (Brenda Lee)