What They Say About Publicity

Photograph of Governor Spitzer, with his wife Silda Wall Spitzer, during his apology to his family and the citizens of New York by Mary Altaffer/AP

I used to work at a publishing house, and one day I overheard a conversation between two publicists.  An author had called, having just read a terrible review of his book.  The publicist had told him that there was “no such thing as bad publicity.”  As she recounted this story to her co-worker, they both had a good laugh.

They both seemed pretty sure there was precisely such a thing as bad publicity, and the bad review was a fine example of such.

I bring this up apropos of the recent news post on Fame Game that describes the trends and attention we have tracked this year.  It’s worth reading in full, but the one that caught my eye was:

Top NY Politicos: New York Locals Win the Race, Scandal Propels Spitzer to New High . . . Eliot Spitzer (6) rises to the top 10 in the wake of scandal.

So Eliot was getting attention, but is there anyone who thinks that it was good attention?  He will almost certainly never be a politician again.

The other thing that is clear from the list is that Fame Game has got to expand to other, less-great cities.  Politicians and socialites seem pretty geographically bounded (obviously), and it would be interesting to see the other local ecosystems.

It seems to have been a good year for Fame Game.  Perhaps one of the tasks of this blog in the coming new year can be to add depth and analysis to the raw data we collect so well.

Tags: Bad Press is Good Press right?, Elliot Spitzer, Fame Game, Michael, Talking About Ourselves