Politics is a slick business. We know this, you know this…everybody knows this. But a little bit of investigative reporting by the Tampa Bay Times that exposed a few poorly planned moves on behalf of Florida governor Rick Scott reveals the kind of weird PR that we’ve unfortunately come to expect from our elected officials.

Mr. Scott wanted to improve his image in the eyes of Florida voters during his gubernatorial campaign, so he bought a rescued Labrador retriever. After he won the election, he did what any responsible dog-lover would do: he returned the lab to its previous owner. Wait, what?

Scott didn’t just buy the dog:

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Yesterday Gawker‘s Hamilton Nolan took the opportunity to give free press to a barely believable project called “$100 PR“–and to provide our entire industry with a bit of good-natured ribbing. While we dispute the idea that the business at large is “desperate for money”, we agree that $100 PR warrants another look.

Created by Laurena Marrone, a PR pro “with over 20 years of diverse experience” that appears to include a lot of music promo work (and the founding of Grit), this “new and extremely unique boutique” firm claims to serve “those who have a need to get the word out about any newsworthy product, service, or event, but cannot afford the high costs of most firms”. Hmm…

According to this guy, $100 PR gives clients “professional PR for your artist, event or venue for 100 bucks”. $100′s own description of its services is fairly straightforward. They include:

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This morning our sister site FishbowlNY brings news that star/writer/maestro Lena Dunham of HBO’s Girls doesn’t approve of Gawker’s recent decision to post a leaked copy of her entire book proposal (which netted her a nice $3.7 million dollar contract). We wonder why that might piss her off…

Now Dunham’s lawyer and Gawker’s editors seem to be playing a game of cat and mouse. The site appeased the star by removing the majority of the text, but its editors chose to leave twelve lines up. Why? Well, in addition to explaining the legal complaints against the site, they’ve used each preserved line as an excuse to make fun of the woman who wrote them, taking her to task for her “nauseating and cloying precociousness”, among other things.

It’s a big bitch-fest made all the more amusing by the fact that Dunham’s show is currently sponsoring the site. Mixed messages!

Yes, this is a bit of New York “inside baseball” media news, but we thought it would be a good opportunity to make a point: your sponsors don’t have to love your brand as long as you have the same audience. And no matter how much smack Gawker talks about Dunham and her show, the two properties have more shared fans than either would like to admit.

Lesson: every brand that didn’t make its fortunes insulting people should go out of its way to play nice with its sponsors.

We’ve read plenty of reports about companies using Hurricane Sandy as a promotional tool; but how are managers behaving? We assume that they’ve all been understanding and respectful of their employees during this extremely trying time, right? According to Gawker, the answer is a resounding no.

Managers at the Madison Square Garden company, a massive conglomerate including the New York venue itself as well as the Knicks, the Rangers, the MSG TV network, and several other venues, sent each of its thousands of employees an email message that will not earn the company any PR plaudits.

(When reading this message, remember that the island of Manhattan essentially still has no power below 34th street, which happens to be the very spot where Madison Square Garden is located–and that all traditional forms of transit have yet to return to operational status in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.)

A quick summary: The company understands that travel to and from the city is extremely difficult and time-consuming right now, and managers know that many employees are currently without power–especially those that live in New Jersey. But (and it’s a big but)…

“We recognize that many employees are impacted by the transportation issues as well as a lack of power, and that some are even dealing with personal damage and health issues. In the event that you need to make the personal decision that you are unable to come to work, you will need to notify your supervisor and take a personal or vacation day to cover the time off.”

In other words: Suck it up and get the hell out here or you’ll lose your days. How will you do it? Surprise us!

Will this be a big PR issue for MSG?

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We aren’t privy to all the sad details of the growing Progressive Insurance PR scandal, but we can give you the basics as reported so far:

• Progressive customer Kaitlyn Fisher died in a tragic 2010 collision
• The other driver was ruled responsible; his insurance provider immediately settled for a very small sum in keeping with his policy
• Because the other driver was “underinsured,” a special clause in Kaitlyn’s policy required that Progressive also pay the difference between his total and hers
• Progressive refused to pay the full total due to Kaitlyn’s estate, forcing her family to take legal action (recent graduate Kaitlyn had considerable student loans due at the time of her death)
• Under Maryland law, the Fisher family could not sue Progressive directly; their only option was to sue the responsible driver and then use the judgment as leverage against the company
• The driver was deemed negligent; during the trial, he was represented by Progressive’s own lawyer.

Sounds like a big headache, huh? It gets worse: Read more

Courtesy of Gawker, we bring you what will undoubtedly be the worst PR move of this or, arguably, any other week: a Minnesota chiropractor’s office sent out a press release implying that both the Aurora Dark Knight Rises tragedy AND the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 could have been prevented by…you guessed it, a trip to your friendly local back specialist.

According to the words of an unnamed PR genius writing under the headline “Don’t Let Anyone Go All Batman on YOUR Kids,” the perpetrators of these horrific crimes were almost certainly motivated by an inability to “feel pain, feel happiness, feel anything” stemming from screwed up or “WAY haywire!!” nervous systems that all lead back to “subluxated” spinal columns and other chiropractic discomforts. Like, duh.

If only those mass murderers had gone in for a glorified back massage. We have no words.

(In the most obvious follow-up ever, an apology was issued the next day.)

Gawker Media’s Nick Denton is not only looking for less inside baseball and better headlines, he’s looking for an old fashioned flack too.

According to a post this afternoon, the network of blogs is looking for a “freelance publicist/booker to handle incoming media requests as well as proactively book our editors for interviews/appearances on television and in print.”

We wonder how Denton can balance his traffic payment model (which keeps writers and editors at their desks) with the time consuming process of preparing for interviews, and traveling to and from TV studios.

Four Corners Comm’s Drew Kerr–who has himself been ensnared in Gawker’s hook-and-don’t-release M.O.–noted the irony in a Tweet today.

Gawker obtained an internal Burson-Marsteller email that plainly asks senior management to use CEO Mark Penn’s latest Wall Street Journal “Microtrends” column as a marketing tool to pitch potential clients.

This particular column was about “Glamping,” i.e. glamorous camping. BM EVP and former Bill Clinton speechwriter Josh Gottheimer sent an email to the very top people suggesting they use the column as an excuse to call the national campground association, Coleman, “or emi ll beam etc.” and set up meetings for “mjp.” I assume he meant L.L. Bean, and either REI or EMS.

Illustrating what I call the “Denton Model” of blogging, former PRWeek reporter Hamilton Nolan weaves solid reporting with a full-dredge of all negative news Penn has been involved in, most notably his being spun out of the Hillary Clinton campaign for conflicts of interest. Once you’re in Gawker’s crosshairs, you can’t get out.

Business development is a bare knuckle game so we can’t really fault Gottheimer’s tactic. Nolan also takes a shot at Dow Jones and their Code of Ethics, and makes a stronger a point about the business of these softer trend op-eds.

What never fails to surprise me about these emails though, is the needless typos and errors for the sake of looking really, really busy. It’s better to be clear.

Apparently Crockett, Tubbs, and not even Spencer were for hire in the case of pesky blogger Hamilton Nolan from Gawker. Two private investigators have been snooping around his home town in Florida seeking information, saying it’s a background check for a potential job.

The former PRWeek reporter joined Gawker in January of this year to cover advertising, media, and PR.

I checked with Nolan and he said “I have no idea who it is,” but did confirm that about 10% of his posts are about the public relations industry.

What is clear though, is the PIs, or “dicks” involved, Steven Brown and Rachel Singleton don’t investigate many people who have the ability to publish their email addresses and cell phone numbers for the entire Manhattan media scene to see.

Feel free to send information on this incident to us here, or use the Anonymous Tips window on the main page. Discretion guaranteed.

Being the last of the mediabistro.com blogs to write about the NY Times magazine cover story penned by former Gawker, and current Galleycat blogger Emily Gould, we’re taking a different tack.

Are you in PR? You have something in common with the tat-clad blogstress. If you have ever emailed a blogger, put your name on a press release, or blogged under your own name you are in a sense, a public figure. It’s an important change (and not all that new) in our industry and it’s critical to understand it.

The new rules of engagement are there are no rules. A blogger or even a mainstream journalist can paste your name in a story whether you like it or not. This is a good thing as long as you know when and where to respond. The best thing to do now is to read the classic Fast Company story “The Brand Called You” and start gently steering your own brand toward the type of PR you want to do.

To illustrate the spectrum of personal exposure online, Gould relates a story illustrated by cutlery on a table, where people without Google traces are the fork on one end, and the ubiquitous Julia Allison are the spoon at the other extreme. It’s getting harder for PR people to be the fork. The full excerpt of the example is pasted after the jump:

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