Topic: WorldNetDaily
It seems Maria Sliwa -- the PR agent working Aaron Klein's anti-Obama book, "The Manchurian President," for WorldNetDaily -- has effectively ended her career as a full-service public relations person.
A May 5 WND article details how Sliwa chose to publicize comments from members of the media who refused to accept a review copy of Klein's book, referring to it as "Absolute crap" and "sensational rubbish," among other things. WND claims the responses were "expletive-laden," but no evidence of that is offered beyond the use of "crap."
The article repeated the laughable assertion that Sliwa's "goal in publicly exposing the e-mail responses to "Manchurian" is not to embarrass the journalists," but to "call them out on their duty as members of the press to leave their biases where they belong – at the door."
This strikes us as stunningly unprofessional behavior on Sliwa's part. Through her pettiness in, yes, trying to embarrass media members who won't play ball with her, Sliwa has sharply limited her PR practice to anyone predisposed to agree with what she's peddling.
Increasingly, she's shilling for every piece of crap WorldNetDaily sends down the pike. When WND wanted Larry Sinclair's bogus story of drugs and sex with Obama publicized (except for the bogus part, of course), it called on Sliwa.When Joseph Farah wanted the world to know just how hate-filled Molotov Mitchell is, Sliwa was his go-to gal.
In another laugher, the WND article claims that Sliwa "dentifies herself as liberal." Not only that, she "lists Robert Thurman, Ghandi and Malcom X as her heroes." First, the names of those last two "heroes" are misspelled, which is either ignorance and atrocious copyeditng on WND's part or a lack of actual commitment on Sliwa's part. Second, stating Malcolm X is one of your heroes is a recipe for getting fired by WND -- after all, Farah has included him on his list of desipcable black "extremists." And Farah is not known for hiring people whose views deviate even slightly from his -- try to find a WND employee who sends their kids to public school, for example.
(Robert Thurman, by the way, is a Buddhist writer and academic. WND is not terribly fond of Buddhists; it was offended that one town put up a banner welcoming the Dalai Lama but not the Ten Commandments, and howled about an insurance company training seminar called "Buddha: 9 to 5."
So not only has Sliwa committed the PR equivalent of burning her sources, which will land her in the ghetto of promoting only right-wingers, she has outed herself as something less than a WND-approved right-winger, which may cost her her WND flacking job as well.
Well played, Maria. Well played.
Of course, if she's an actual Buddhist, she will be glad to get a little of her soul back by no longer taking money from WND.
P.S. It seems the media critics Sliwa so desperately wants to burn may be right in their prejudging of Klein's book. Media Matters' Simon Maloy offers 10 reasons why "The Manchurian President" lives up to the "ridiculous crap" sobriquet.
