Drudge on MS ad blitz

["Kris Shapar" <shapar@moon.jic.com>]

I know it's Matt Drudge, but still...

There was also a less sensational article about this at 

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20941,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Thu, 09 Apr 98 22:32:24 EST
From:          drudge@drudgereport.com
To:            DRUDGE@DRUDGEREPORT.COM
Subject:       DRUDGE-REPORT-FLASH 4/9/98
Reply-to:      drudge@drudgereport.com

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT FLASH XXXXX 20:55:36 PDT THU APRIL 09 1998 XXXXX


PAPER:  MSFT MEDIA BLITZ TO CREATE LOOK OF PUBLIC SUPPORT

Friday's LOS ANGELES TIMES has obtained internal confidential documents from
MICROSOFT that show the software giant has "secretly been planning a massive
media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the
appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company."

TIMES reporters Greg Miller and Leslie Helm shock with the elaborate plan of
media control involving "the planting of articles, letters to the editor and
opinion pieces to be commissioned by MICROSOFT's top media handlers but
presented by local firms as spontaneous testimonials."

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that according to the documents obtained by
the TIMES, in a story now set for Page One of Friday editions, local PR
agencies will begin placing opinion pieces to the media next week, in a
first wave of the "Microsoft multi-state plan."  

The newspaper report reveals:  "Opinion pieces are to be written by
free-lance writers, and perhaps a 'national economist,' according to one
document.  The writers would be paid with costs 'billed to MICROSOFT as an
out-of-pocket expense.'"

Sources close to MSFT tell Miller and Helm that the campaign is a result of
the company's "growing fears that it is being outgunned in the media by
rivals and perhaps even hostile state officials."

"They're trying to plant stories about how wonderful it is to do business
with Microsoft," one unnamed source tells the TIMES.

The stated targets of the campaign are attorneys general and politicians in
12 states that may be considering antitrust action against the giant,
reports the paper.  Costing millions of dollars, the goal is to generate
positive public relations at critical junctures in MSFT's various legal battles.

MSFT spokesman Greg Shaw, whose name appears throughout confidential
documents, initially told the paper that he was unaware of such a plan,
later amending comment, acknowledging that the plan exists, but saying it is
"merely a proposal and 'not something we are moving on.'"

But the TIMES goes deep on a meeting held in Chicago earlier this week
attended by many, if not all, of the regional coordinators allegedly
involved in the blitz that is designed to appear not as a major thrust by
MSFT, but as a spontaneous eruption of grass-roots support. 

Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley tells the TIMES:  "It represents
arrogance, and it's personally demeaning to me.  Bill Gates would have been
better off if he or one of his representatives had picked up the phone and
called me."

KAPOW!



____________________________________________________
Filed by Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com   for breaks
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 1998  
Not for reproduction without permission of the author





 


                                 
Kris Shapar
____________________________________________________________________

          To doubt everything or to believe everything
          are two equally convenient solutions; both
          dispense with the necessity of reflection.

                              - Jules Henri Poincaré
____________________________________________________________________