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| Sojourner Truth |
President Biden wants to speed the process of putting abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the face of the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson, who was responsible for the “Trail of Tears” forced evacuation of Native Americans from the southeast.
President Trump threw cold water on replacing Jackson, saying it is “pure political correctness” to put Tubman on the bill.
But what goes around comes around.
More than 201K people have signed a petition on Change.org, supporting the renaming of the 465-acre “Donald J. Trump Park” in New York’s Westchester and Putnam Counties to “Sojourner Truth Park.”
Trump’s real estate company bought the land for $2M but when it was thwarted in developing the property it donated the parcel to the state for a tax write-up.
Born an enslaved person outside Kingston, NY in 1797, Truth, who gained her freedom in 1827 when NYS banned slavery, went on to be a leading advocate of emancipation and women’s suffrage.
The petition notes that the names given to public property have significance in how we choose to reflect the character and values of who we are as a nation and people.
Truth represents the Empire State’s commitment to freedom and diversity. “It seems only fitting that a park stripped of the name of a man who incited insurrection should be replaced with that of a woman who fought against and helped defeat insurrectionists,” states the petition.
Sign me up.
The sky's the limit for the New York Times, according to CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, who has targeted the world’s 100M people willing to pay for online news in English. That’s 10 percent of the 1B global digital news readers.
Kopit Levien sees an opportunity to increase the NYT’s 6.7M digital subscriber base three or four fold “over time.”
She is getting a little ahead of herself. Her bullishness comes as the New York Times Co. reported flat Q4 revenues of $509.4M and 3.3 percent uptick in operating profit to $80.5M. Net income plummeted 84.3M to $10.8M.
That lackluster financial performance occurred despite a frenzied news period, which featured Trump’s nonsensical “stolen election” claims, global COVID-19 pandemic and the shaky rollout of vaccines.
The NYT did scoop up 627K new digital subscribers during Q4, but 202K of them were for cooking, games and audio products.
Conservatives like to rail against “cancel culture” but the idea of withholding support for companies and public figures after they’ve done something deemed objectionable does have its fans.
More than a one-third (34 percent) of Americans says cancel culture is good for society, according to a survey by Porter Novelli. That easily tops the 20 percent who say cancel culture is bad. Three-in ten believe cancel culture is effective, but overused.
PN’s “Business of Cancel Culture Study” does put a positive spin on cancel culture, concluding that cancellation is not the end but a beginning of creative a positive public discourse.
A good PR firm can get companies back into the good graces of their detractors.
Blue Origin earns PR misfire of the week award for its massively hyped launch of all-female crew to edge of outer space... State Dept. shutters office of foreign misinformation to protect flow of content of America's right-wing bloggers and assorted nutjobs... Zip it JD. Mr. Hillbilly Elegy disses Chinese people as 'peasants.'
The guy who fronted Trump University takes on Harvard, which he says can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning... Doesn't the US "have the cards" in dealing with El Salvador? We are paying it $6M to jail people deported from here without due process... Will Publicis Groupe be the last marketing comms firm standing? Its CEO seems to think so.
President Trump should have chosen Warren Zevon’s classic “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” as background music for his whiny "Liberation Day" speech... Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg says Team Trump calling him 'bad names' boosts his publication's subscription... White House publishes quotes from GOP Members of Congress praising tariffs, giving Democrats 'hit list' for midterms... Shame on US Naval Academy as it removes items honoring Jewish female graduates ahead of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's visit.
Trump thows Elon Musk under the bus after he gets walloped in Wisconsin special election. It's time for Elon to tune-up Tesla before it drives off a financial cliff... Kudos to Cory Booker's press team for coverage of the Jersey Senator's epic speech... Congress has the moral responsibility to fight for release of imprisoned VoA reporters.
Standing up to Donald Trump has paid dividends for foreign leaders. It could help Republicans, too... JD Vance plans "to check out the security of Greenland," much to the chagrin of Danes and Greenlanders everywhere... There's still time for the White House to call off its tacky Easter Egg Roll corporate sponsorship plans.
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Feb. 5, 2021, by Joe Honick
The term "cancel culture" is nothing more than a gimmick dreamed up by some clever folks and should be "canceled."