BlogHer - What do Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Forbes Magazine have in common? - Comments

Whoo!

Mom101 — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:50:12 -0500

Perfect assessment.

Perhaps Bono can help

Maria Niles — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 13:26:28 -0500

Mr. McNamee called the alliance with Forbes a â€œbrand-defining momentâ€? for Elevation, a relatively new partnership conceived by a rock star and guided by some of the more successful venture capitalists on the West Coast.

â€œIt says that we are in the business of helping content creators in the traditional media world manage the transition imposed by the Internet,â€? he said. Bono was not directly involved in the Forbes meetings, but Mr. McNamee said that the singer was attracted to the magazine because it â€œhas a point of view,â€? adding that Bono â€œdrove this part of the discussion and likes the fact that there has been a consistent philosophy throughout its history.â€?

Perhaps now that Bono is a part owner of Forbes he can align that "consistent philosophy" in a direction that is more humanistic and not so ridiculously sexist.

Maybe this explains it

Marianne Richmond — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:51:21 -0500

We received a subscription offer from Forbes recently....$10 for a year's subscription.

This was a savings of $119 over the cover price. Online subsciption offer from Forbes is $29.99. Still a BIG discount.

Also, the "professional discount" offer was addressed to my 13 year old son.

Holding with market price theory, the value of a Forbes subscription in today's economy is declining...perhaps they have changed their target to adolescent males as evidenced by the discount offered to my son and these recent articles offering marital and dating advice.

Great post Elana!

Marianne

Marianne Richmond
resonancepartnership

It's like being a little pregnant

Elana Centor — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 08:56:32 -0500

If Forbes was thinking that any publicity is good for business, they should have thought about that Chinese saying, " Be careful for what you wish, you may just get it."

The idea that they may have thought publicity, albeit critical, would be great for circulation is a little like thinking that everything will turn out okay because " I'm just a little pregnant."

It should be noted that Forbes reaction of "pulling" an article because of backlash is rather unprecedented-- this is not normal behavior in the world of journalism. Posting an apology might be in order but their lame attempt at diffusing the controversy by their point- counter point was IMHO---besides the point.

elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

Forbes should give Elizabeth Corcoran a new job and a raise

Lisa Stone — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 08:21:46 -0500

Instead of quitting, she restored some credibility to the editors who have made themselves laughingstocks by running Noer's piece.

For her quick work on "Counterpoint: Don't Marry A Lazy Man," Corcoran deserves their thanks, a promotion and at least one their jobs.

That said, Corcoran's and Noer's pieces are both flawed -- I know far too many men staying at home with the children and far too many women CEOs for these outdated archetypes to hold even one more day. They're laughable! Then again, I have the vision of a woman who doesn't have to work at Forbes with Noer and his editors every day.

These rants are a perfect example of why BlogHer exists. The number of people who aren't bringing an evolved vision of gender to newsrooms is obvious if you read op-eds anywere (and there are notable exceptions; I give you James Wolcott's Vanity Fair piece post-Summers. Swoony).

One of the millions of women who blog with more wit and brains than you see in many mainstream glossies, in fact, is how I found out about Forbes' decision to insult the readers who control 83 percent of every household dollar (that's you, ladies). And why I believe it will have *longstanding* repercussions for this magazine's reputation. Here's what happened:

1. I got an email from a woman who is well-known venture capitalist here in Silicon Valley. We call each other for strategic advice. We speak on panels together. She is smart as hell and helps manage more money than I can count.

2. She said -- and I'll summarize because I haven't asked her permission to publish her email:

@#$%^ WTF?!

3. I emailed Elana Centor along with a few other BlogHer contributing editors -- all of Business, Career & Personal Finance, the Tech & Web crew (Marianne Richmond has lots of deep thoughts on business & gender), and Susan Mernit. What does your collective genius tell you? I asked.

4. Elana kicked off the discussion, getting some terrific feedback from the group, including the idea that this maelstrom could have been planned to deliver much-needed August pageviews to Forbes.com. (The summer slump is in full-swing there, is my guess -- and hey, it should be, since the only part of the Web that defies August vacations is women bloggers who keep working and writing anyway. And Forbes hasn't done too much to encourage our audience. You doubt me? Go ahead - link through to the article above. See that interstitial ad before you get to the piece? Who's the 'whore' here anyway, to use the phrase Noer has applied to wives before? Hat-tip: Gawker.)

Nice work Elana.

My only regret is this: That Elizabeth Corcoran's conclusion could be interpreted to say that career women are more interesting than women who work inside the home. I doubt she meant it that way, so I hope we can give her the benefit of the doubt and, again, a hearty thanks for standing up to the people who pay her and cry bullshit.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Forbes. WTF?

Sarah — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 07:26:19 -0500

I can't believe that Forbes Magazine was short-sighted enough to publish that garbage in the first place. It set women back about sixty years.

They might have been better off with a straight apology.

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Sports and Fitness
Sarah and the Goon Squad

What do Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Forbes Magazine have in common?

Elana Centor — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:50:59 -0500

They said a bad, bad, thing. Mel apologized. Tom got the boot. Forbes pulled its article.

Not since former Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested that innate differences between the sexes might have something to do with the scarcity of women at the highest levels of math, science, and engineering has a respected institution felt the wrath of feminists scorned quite the way Forbes Magazine Online experienced it on Wednesday.

It started with the publication of Executive Editor Michael Noer's piece called " Don't Marry Career Women".

Gawker led the charge.

This morning, after we fully digested Forbes' "Smart Women Will Rip Your Dick Right Off," piece, we grew curious about Michael Noer, its author. As it turns out, he's written another piece about marriage for Forbes. This one starts out, "Wife or whore? The choice is that simple."

Before you could say, "Do you take this woman to be your wife," Forbes had pulled the article.

Of course, bloggers still had links to it.

By Wednesday evening Forbes had resurrected the article. In its reincarnation it is no longer a feature article.It's now being packaged as a point-counter point opinion piece.

In addressing the situation Forbes said,

Forbes.com published a story Aug. 22 by editor Michael Noer on two-career relationships that provoked a heated response from both outside and inside our building. Elizabeth Corcoran, a member of our Silicon Valley bureau and principal author of the magazine's current cover story on robots, sent in this rebuttal. Here's a link for reader discussion.

Forbes is still missing the point. Running it as part of a point-- counter point isn't going to solve anything.

The point is that it took the outrage of readers and their own employees to make the editorial team at Forbes realize that what Noer had written was an opinion piece and not a piece of objective journalism.

They broke the public trust. They insulted their subscribers. They were snarky.

While readers expect and accept snarky from Gawker and other bloggers, they do not expect it from mainstream business publications that are supposed to adhere to fundamental journalistic ethics.

That's not to say Forbes can't be edgy and even snarky. It can. Just label the piece as a blog--- not a piece of journalism. There is a difference.

What is so confusing is about the entire episode is trying to figure out their business strategy?

The editorial team at Forbes isn't dumb. They had to know that what they were publishing was over the top. What is so mystifying is how they didn't anticipate the reaction.

Or maybe they did. Maybe this was a very calculated move to signal to younger men that they are not staid, boring, or their father's business journal.

Whatever they were thinking, they weren't thinking about their female readers. We did get that message loud and clear.

Oh, and just because this is a blog, and because I can be snarky if I want to, I thought I'd share my favorite post on the entire brouhaha. From Discombobulation Station-- a post on potential subtitles to Noer's piece.

Like, Duh!

The Smarter They Are, The More They Cheat -- Could It Be Because The Men They Marry Somehow All End Up Being Impotent Dorks Who Don't Pick Up Their Socks?

What Ho, Feminism?

Or, Why Michael Noer Never Got Laid Again, Except By That One Girl Who Works at The Piggly-Wiggly and Cain't Read so Good

Elana blogs at FunnyBusiness a blog about business culture.