The New York Times is reporting that Mark Penn, head of Burson-Marsteller, PR agency to the rich, powerful and venal, is writing a regular column for the Wall Street Journal that his agency is then using to drum up new business. Apparently, the WSJ doesn’t see this as a conflict of interest. Why would they, now that it’s owned by the Wizened of Oz, who never saw a bent deal he didn’t like? The paper claims that Penn had assured them that he had did not know in advance about the attempt to leverage his column into new business, and that it would not happen again. Ha, fucking yes. Based on his track record I wouldn’t put much stock in that. Remember, this is the guy who took zillions of fucking dollars out of Hilary Clinton’s campaign, when he was the chief strategist, while still the CEO of both Burson-Marsteller and his own polling company. The straw that broke the camel’s fucking back was when he took on the government of Colombia as a client to promote a trade pact that Clinton opposed. If ad people are at the bottom of the totem pole, PR people are the shit the pole is sitting in.
Do not buy used PR from this man!