MoveOn.org has apparently hired the public interest PR firm Fenton Communications and, as a MoveOn supporter, I am sorry to say that their first press release stinks.
The agency issued a rambling 674-word press release about fact that CBS has refused to run a MoveOn ad during the Super Bowl. The actual news — that “Fox Network curmudgeon” Bill O’Reilly said yesterday that he is “surprised that CBS turned this down,” — was buried in the bottom of the release.
Minutes later, an email from MoveOn pointed to an online petition against CBS. Yet the release did not mention or link to the petition.
The CBS refusal was widely covered online and in traditional media last week so the headline, “CBS Guilty of Political Favoritism in Rejecting MoveOn.Org Voter Fund Ad” is old news. There was no link to the rejected ad.
The release, marked urgent, had the “from” address Kawana Lloyd, and went straight into my spam filter. Fenton should consider having “Kawana Lloyd for MoveOn,” as the “from” address since MoveOn is already white listed by millions.
Oddly, the release repeatedly refers to MoveOn as MOVF. Search engine results for MOVF turn up an industrial supply Website. Not exactly a great start for MoveOn’s PR campaign.
