From: Alina Davis

Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 5:00 PM

To: Martha

Subject: Good Wishes

Dear Martha,

This was my first visit to the marthatalks website and it was very interesting. I cannot tell you how much I wish that all this passes quickly for you and the jury makes the only intelligent decision and finds you not guilty of all charges.

Sorry, Alina.

It won't matter.

Smart PR counsel would've told Martha to settle early on in the ordeal.

Whether the jury finds Martha Stewart guilty or innocent, the domestic princess already has lost severely over the past two years of agony, as her fraud and obstruction of justice trial has inched along.

Well before Judge Miriam Cedarbaum called the jury to order in February, the world's most well known salad-tosser had:

• Forfeited the top job at the company she created, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, stepping down in the wake of early disruptive publicity.

• Sacrificed close to $500,000 in stock market wealth, as her continued silence amidst non- stop accusations drove down the price of her company stock.

• Effectively battered her reputation for perfection and purity, with charges of greed, deceit and downright malevolence.

Indeed, in the first several weeks of the page one trial, Dame Martha was revealed as a world class cheapskate, having demanded $17,000 annually for her weekend driver, as well as corporate reimbursement for everything from trips to the hairdresser to snacks and coffee (not even necessarily Starbuck's!).

And for anyone who bought into those wild tales of Martha as an, ahem, "witch" on wheels - boy, were they right. "I have never, ever been treated more rudely by a stranger on the telephone,""huffed broker's assistant Douglas Faneuil about his boss's celebrity client. "She actually hung up on me!"

Oooofa.

What makes the Martha mess even more miserable is that the whole sorry saga could have been avoided, had Martha simply listened to sound public relations advice two years ago. That advice would have counseled Martha to 1) acknowledge publicly what she had done – sold in a panic, lied to investigators, whatever 2) apologize ashamedly and volunteer to pay whatever restitution was necessary and 3) ask for understanding of her misguided actions, done in haste.

Had she listened to such sound PR counsel, Martha Stewart wouldn't have lost all she has thus far and wouldn't be facing even more onerous consequences.

Instead, Martha, as so many high profile defendants do when faced with public crisis, relied exclusively on her lawyers - rather than PR advisers -- to get her off the hot seat. Here's why that was a mistake.

YOU CAN'T POUR PERFUME ON A SKUNK.

The oldest public relations axiom is that "You can't have publicity without performance." Literally translated, that means you can't pretend it isn't so if it really is. In other words, "If you lie, you lose." Or, in other, other words, "You can't pour perfume on a skunk."

In Martha's case, her original statements about receiving no preferential information about ImClone's imminent failure were just plain bogus.

Testimony about frantic calls to ImClone's CEO, panicked typeovers of broker messages, and thankful asides about how nice it is to have "brokers who tell you those things" all indicate that Martha lied early and was stuck as the story snowballed. The cardinal rule in public relations is that you can never, ever lie. That would have been the first piece of advice from PR professionals, had she sought their counsel instead of that of her attorneys.

SILENCE GRANTS THE POINT.

After her initial statement, Martha Stewart, on the advice of counsel, went off the radar screen.
As charges swirled around her, the domestic goddess was nowhere to be seen. She tossed a hissy fit over a tossed salad on CBS and then went uncharacteristically mute for months.

Public relations counsel would have advised otherwise.

Martha's strength is her bearing and personality and ease with the media. She demonstrated this with stellar last-minute, pre-trial appearances with Barbara Walters and Larry King. By then, however, the damage had been done.

Lawyers counsel, often correctly, that whatever you say publicly can be held against you later on in court. So say nothing. But PR advisers know that "Silence grants the point" – that if you have no rebuttal in the face of non-stop accusations, then surely, the public assumes, you must be guilty.

Much better in the Stewart case would have been to use Martha's innate communications ability in strategic media engagements to keep her side of the story before the public.

TAKE THE HUMBLE ROAD.

Apologizing and practicing humility may, indeed, be PR 101. But such a course makes great sense when your alternative is Sing Sing.

Martha Stewart never should have agreed to go to trial. Whatever the ultimate verdict, she has been humiliated, belittled, and proven that all those nasty stories about her temper and arrogance and self-absorption were true.

PR counsel would have advised her to settle, in advance, for a fee with the Feds to avoid the ignominy. Chances are, that's precisely how the trial will come out - with Martha paying a fine for all the aggravation.

Meanwhile, the fans keep the faith vigil on the www.marthatalks.com website.

From: Bill & Mary Shelton

Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 8:27 PM

To: Martha

Subject: Keep Your Cool

Dear Ms. Stewart,

Keep your chin up and don't buckle under to all this sorry display of national pettiness and misguided waste of time. We are truly sorry that the trial is so distracting and consuming your time and energy which could be so much better spent."

Amen brother - and sister.