Real Media Riffs: The Marvin Gaye Version What's Going On? Ad Age ran a story yesterday about how the British magazine company Dennis Publishing's "church and state" sensibility is more porous than the cement-bound American model. The Brit model gives a general manager more access to editorial plans and strategy, which is one of the reasons I guess, that Dennis Publishing, among others, has been able to run roughshod through that silly nonsense called words.

My Gawd, Muffy: Big brands are more overprotected than a rich kid at prep school these days. We know way too much about the lack of advertising during TV coverage of the Iraqi conflict.

Other People's Riffs For The Week That Was: Except If You Call Them Weenies: Fred Barnes, the executive editor of The Weekly Standard and a commentator for the Fox News Channel, said the news media was overstating how easy the war would be and then panicking as fighting got rough. "The American people," he said, "are not as casualty-sensitive as the weenies in the American press are.

Changes In Latitudes; Changes In Attitudes: We have had a lot of discussions around the office here about how the war is being presented. A lot of it centers around whether changes in reporting (such as embedded reporters) rate a story in Media Daily News.

Stock The Casbah: Al Jazeera, the Arabic media news organization, put up an English language website yesterday. I doubt they were looking to increase their reach and frequency in America.

War. What Is It Good For?: Bad headlines and armed forces advertising, I guess.

Tears Don't Care Who Cried Them: I think that was the name of an old Patsy Cline song, wasn't it? Anyway, it fits the current plight of celebrities using the media to protest the war in Iraq and then get whacked by the media and public for their efforts. Celebrities use the media to advertise the same way any packaged goods brand does.

Other People’s Riffs. The War Version (Kindof).

Image Is Everything: I love image campaigns. Call them awareness campaigns, call them branding campaigns, I don’t care what you call them but when a brand decides it's going to spend a lot of money to re-establish itself, I think it works every time.

No Countdown: If you’re looking for the countdown clock, find another commentator and website. I’m here to talk about the ad business.