Stocks Dip..."The Big Short" is Popular Financial Flick...CDC, NYC Duck on Cellphone Dangers

The stock market had its worst start ever to a New Year last week but that went unnoticed on the 11 p.m. Friday Jan. 8 TV network newscasts. Local crime and the weather got big play as usual. The market slide, if it continues will impact all of business…”The Big Short,” a litany of Wall Street abuses that will not increase confidence in the Street, racked up $40 million+ in box office, making it No. 7 on Fandango’s list…

Jennifer Lawrence, who has served as an animated guest on at least a half dozen recent TV interview shows, was the highest paid actress in 2015 at $52M, says Forbes. The star of “Hunger Games” movies and “Joy,” she tells embarrassing stories about herself and is termed “down to earth,” “humble and real,” and “breath of fresh air” by viewers. Where is the CEO or PR exec who can win such terms?...we watched the J Law interviews while waiting two hours for our flight to D.C. to take off Tuesday, Dec. 22 from LaGuardia. There were fewer than a half dozen passengers when we arrived for the 3 p.m. flight which made us nervous. Sure enough, it was announced that “equipment problems” had cancelled the flight. When the plane took off at 5 p.m., every seat was filled. This has happened several times to us. The pilot apologized profusely for the “equipment problem” while some passengers snickered…

Centers for Disease Control and New York Times both ducked Jan. 2 on the dangers posed by cellphones. CDC reversed its recent advice urging “caution” with cellphones and again says it just doesn’t know about them. Cellphone companies are among NYT’s biggest advertisers. NYT’s long, meandering story fails to note copious evidence that cellphones are a longterm danger, particularly to children. Apple itself, in small type near the end of its instructions, tells users never to carry a cellphone in a pocket. It should be on “Airplane Mode” or completely off (hold down off key for several seconds) when not in use. Holding a cellphone close to your head is the same as sticking your head in an operating microwave oven. Use speaker option when possible. Stay at least ten feet away from a microwave that’s on…

”My cellphone made me a terrible parent,” New York Post columnist Stephanie Thompson wrote Jan. 7. She lost her iPhone and found it made an improvement in her relationships with her children and friends. She now tells them to put their cellphones away and is keeping her own use to a minimum...

Oculus, owned by Facebook, is marketing a new virtual reality headpiece at $599. The device, which envelops most of the upper head and impacts the brain with electromagnetic waves, is not to be used by anyone under 13. Other health hazards are covered in an Oculus PDF ...

Radon gas, the second biggest cause of lung cancer after smoking, is a problem in one of 15 homes. There is no safe level of radon, says the Environmental Protection Agency which is promoting January as “National Radon Action Month.” Homes with even a minimal amount of radon subject occupants to the equivalent of smoking eight cigarettes a day or having 200 chest X-rays a year…

President Obama, who has averaged the fewest press conferences since President Reagan (20 per year vs. 5.75 for Reagan, 26 yearly for President George W. Bush and 24 yearly for President Clinton) has recently opted for a series of “conversations” with prominent figures in the arts, letters and entertainment. It’s a way to avoid the grilling of a press conference. In the same ballpark is Obama’s use of a single-topic appearance such as his Jan. 7 “Town Hall” that was confined to gun control. The interviews with prominent figures are “slow-paced, personal, divorced from the news of the day,” writes AP’s Kathleen Hennessey in describing Obama’s “new media strategy”…

The Federal Trade Commission on Aug. 13, 2015 issued a “Statement of Enforcement Principles” that steps up its ability to “take action against unfair methods of competition.” FTC says it could use its “standalone authority” to look into any practice that “must cause or be likely to cause, harm to the competition or the competitive process…” That certainly describes the boycott that PR Society of America enforces against the O’Dwyer Co. which blocks us from exhibiting our five news and informational products to its annual conference attended by some 3,000 regular and student members. Somehow we are considered objectionable although the Society sold at least 50,000 copies of O’Dwyer articles for its info pack service from 1978-94…

New York Financial Writers Assn. and PRSA have the same prickly attitude to the press as though being unhelpful and even rude is the way to deal with reporters. NYFWA, without consulting members or yet providing a PDF, has just killed its printed directory of members. PRSA did the same thing in 2005. PRSA membership was 20,874 in 2005 and only 22,000 now. We think there’s a connection. PRSA’s directory was its single most useful product but a bone in the throat to the staff because of the time and money it took. Staff prefers members to be in the dark and divided. Members would print their own directory if they had a PDF but PRSA won’t provide it. NYFWA, with cash, savings and investments of $500,635 as of Jan. 31, 2015, is raising its dues from $50 to $60. It can’t afford a single press ticket to its “Follies” and puts reporters who buy tickets at the last possible table. A check of the 2011-12 and 2013-14 directories shows 28 “Active” members dropped out among the first 116 names, a renewal rate of 74%. Listing of members by employers was dropped in 2013-14 when the previous directory showed 100 of the members were “freelancers.”