Re: Edison

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>]

At 05:37 AM 1/2/99 -0500, John J. Urbaniak wrote:
 
>Tell me then, why are such PR campaigns successful?  What is wrong with
>the Press that, time and time again, they fall for these campaigns?
>
>I think the Press are the real villains here.  They're the ones who are
>supposed to uncover the truth.  Instead, they propagate the lies.

I wouldn't say they're villains; I'd say they're HUMAN. All humans
have weaknesses and frailties and are subject to exploitation. The
PR industry (which doubtless dates back to heralds in the courts of 
monarchs now long forgotten) makes its money by exploiting these
weaknesses: laziness, arbitrarily tight deadlines, quotas that
emphasize quantities of words rather than quality of research,
and requirements to cover subject matter about which they are
not sufficiently knowledgeable to write.

In short, never assume malice when incompetence will do. ;-)

--Brett