Mark Penn, the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, last seen stepping down from the Clinton presidential campaign because Burson was pursuing a trade deal on behalf of Colombia at the same time candidate Clinton was condemning same, had another conflict of interest issue surface this week regarding his ongoing column in The Wall Street Journal Online.
Ably covered by Richard Perez-Pena in The New York Times, basically what it argues is that Penn's colleagues used a recent column on the micro-trend of glamorous camping, "glamping," as an opportunity to pitch new business from related industries.
What? You didn't read Penn's column on "glamping?"
These are times when you can't help channeling Claude Rains in Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked, that a businessman would use a platform in a major media outlet to try and get more business!"
Why else would the CEO of one of the largest public relations firms in the world bother to write a column every two weeks for about $800 a throw? Frankly, I've seen a lot worse abuse of similar platforms in my career.
The real question here isn't whether or not Burson's marketing tactics were cricket - all byline articles will be used for marketing in some form - but whether or not "glamping" is a real trend and furthermore whether the news of the day was enhanced by the column.
I knew Perez-Pena when he worked on the health insurance beat at the NYT and he doesn't pull any punches. Strange that he didn't raise that question in his article.
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