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| Mayim Bialik |
Really, Sony? Are you going to replay that charade of picking a successor to late Jeopardy host Alex Trebek?
After auditioning 16 actors, broadcast journalists, TV personalities and Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rogers over seven months, a process that generated positive PR for Sony Pictures Entertainment, the company crowned executive producer Mike Richards as host of the venerable TV game show. Was the fix in?
As a consolation prize, it picked neuroscientist and Big Bang actress Mayim Bailik to host Jeopardy prime-time specials and spin-offs.
By selecting insider Richards, who barely moved the needle during his tryout, Sony flushed all of the good vibes that it earned during the auditions down the drain.
Richards did as poorly as Joe Buck, Dr. Oz and George Stephanopoulos, Sanjay Gupta and Rogers.
Sony snubbed fan favorites: actor LaVar Burton, who has long expressed a desire to host the show; Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Buzzy Cohen; former "CBS Evening News" and "Today" anchor Katie Couric; and Bailik. Any one of them would have been a worthy replacement for Trebek.
Richards on Aug. 20 withdrew from any hosting duties after it was revealed that he made sexist and offensive comments on a podcast several years ago.
That gave Sony an opportunity to redeem itself by awarding Bialik permanent hosting duties and putting the whole mess behind it.
Instead, Sony decided to plod on. It announced Bailik will host the next 15 episodes of the weeknight show, while it resumes the search for a new host.
Sony has got to be kidding. Fool us once, shame on us. Fool us twice, shame on Sony.
Note to Sony: though the sainted Trebek was loved by millions of fans, you are not exactly searching for a successor to the Pope. It's a game show. Make Bailik the new host and move on.
Who’s got the toughest job in PR? My pick is John DeFries, president/CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority as the Aloha State is warning people not to visit through October due to a surge in COVID-19 that is overburdening the healthcare system.
Hawaii governor David Inge said on Aug. 23: “Our hospitals are reaching capacity and our ICUs are filling up. Now is not a good time to travel to Hawaii.”
Hawaii tourism was showing a sharp rebound from 2020. The state reported a 121.7 percent jump to $368 in average daily rate and a 60.1 percent jump in occupancy rates to 82.4 percent from July 2020 when a quarantine order for travelers was in effect.
In releasing those upbeat numbers, DeFries warned that tourism during the fall shoulder season could suffer due to the rise in the Delta variant.
He was right on target.
Facebook continues to shoot itself in the foot. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasts about the 18M pieces of misinformation/disinformation that he claims have been removed from the site, the platform killed a report that showed its most-viewed link to a news article with a headline that the COVID-19 vaccine killed a doctor in Florida. Talk about spreading junk information.
Facebook decided not to release the report after Alex Schultz, VP of analytics and chief marketing officer, worried that it would create a PR problem.
Facebook has a PR and a transparency problem that government regulators may be required to fix.
A shareholder proposal slated for Mondelez International's annual meeting seeks to make sure that the cookie and chocolate company doesn't suffer the same fate as Bud Light after if used transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in marketing effort... Financial services sector slowly regains the public trust that it lost following the global meltdown... China's Baidu cuts ties with PR chief who warned staffers not to run afoul of its work-till-you drop policy.
Girl Scouts of Greater New York must rue the day that it signed lease in The Trump Building, home of Donald Trump's post-hush money trial rants... Trump Media & Technology Group says it conducted a "detailed evaluation process" before hiring new auditor, a day before the old one was barred from doing business... Police departments have failed to learn lessons of Black Lives Matter protests, as they have arrested/charged 19 journalists (so far) who were covering Gaza demonstrations.
Democrats play their favorite game, which is bashing Big Oil for its effort to cast doubt on global warming... Wingnut Marjorie Taylor Greene justified her vote against the Antisemitism Awareness Act by sputtering antisemitic nonsense... The deeply politically polarized USA stands united in worries about 2024 election coverage.
What would you do if you have received a call from one of Musk’s few remaining top lieutenants to see if you would be interested in advising him on PR matters? 
Nike finally throws in the towel and admits that its new MLB uniforms are a flop... A good chunk (34 percent) of TikTokers support a ban on the Chinese app.... "Lede of the Week Award" goes to Wall Street Journal reporter Angus Berwick for story abourt John Jacob Astor IV's gold pocket watch.
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Aug. 25, 2021, by Bill Huey
I think Sony should hire Urban Meyer and be done with it. He's popular, a former great success, and he couldn't do any worse there than he is doing in Jacksonville.