Bob Guccione, Jr

Articles by Bob All articles by Bob

• We Can't Let The Coverage Be Worse Than The Disease in MediaDailyNews on 04/03/2020
  

  I believe our reaction to this pandemic on all levels, from leadership to panic buyers, is as much a creation of limitless media as of contagion.

Comments by Bob All comments by Bob

• Poll: Should @realDonaldTrump Have Been Reinstated Based On Results Of A Poll? by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 11/22/2022)
  

  I find Trump disgusting --- and I say that with authority, having known him for 20+ years until I finally shook his cloying, social-climbing grasp (but not before publishing a piece by him in Gear in 2000 about why he should be President... Oh, God.) --- but I vote yes, absolutely let him be reinstalled. His opinions aren't going to change, his most ardent followers --- he is, basically, a cult --- will still slobber all over his mysoginist, racist, narcissitic rantings, but let's trust everyone else to be strong enough to be exposed to this garbage and not fall under its spell.It isn't censorship for twitter, or any publisher or platform or laundromat bulletin board to not publish someone or something. But it is against the principle of free speech to remove someone from a platform where other, "sanctioned" opinions are freely distributed. It's intellectually wrong to parse between opinions and for someone (who we didn't make hall monitor incidentally) to decide what's acceptable and not. Let each individual decide for themsellves!Lenny Bruce once said, in a powerful standup routine in which he used the N word dozens of times, to make his point, that a word's suppression gives it its power. He said that in 1962 I think. Sixty years later its exponentially more true.

• Price Spike: Magazines Are Facing Higher Newsstand Distribution Costs by Ray Schultz (Publishers Daily on 11/17/2022)
  

  Ah, thanks for subsequently including those points! When I wrote this comment, it was to an earlier version, so sorry for the (now) confusion everyone!

• Price Spike: Magazines Are Facing Higher Newsstand Distribution Costs by Ray Schultz (Publishers Daily on 11/17/2022)
  

  Ray, this piece really covers the issue. It's sad to see that people didn't want to go on the record, but you got some great quotes in.Two things that you left out from our conversation that I'd like to add here: 1) I really believe magazine publishers have to go direct to the retailers. There are multiple channels for this and in the past national distributors had alternative distribution set up, but the publishers, frankly, didn't have the courage to make the leap. They would have been infinitely better off had they done so, and could still create those new pathways.2) Someone has to do the math! When distributors --- all two of them --- say they "have" to charge these ever escalating new fees to offset fuel and labor costs they are being disingenuous. Wages have risen, but the distributors have been consistently cutting their labor force. And as for fuel --- the gas to run the trucks to the stores --- how much in real dollars has that cost gone up? (Not percentages, that's misleading.) Even if it's tens of thousands of dollars a year, the extra 1 - 5 cents per copy distributed adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, if not more! So the extra fees are way disproportionate to the actual costs, which I think is not only egregious but also proof that the distributors know they'll be out of the magazine business in a few years, and are grabbing as much cash as they can as they abandon the field.And that's probably why no-one from their side agreed to be interviewed.

• If You Believe 'Bothsidesism,' You Believe In An Oxymoron by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 07/13/2022)
  

  Joe, you make an excellent point --- actually you make several excellent points but I specifically mean about subjectivity. When I taught journalism for a year at Ole Miss I stressed to the students to dump this ecclesiastic devotion to the notion of "objectivity." I said being objective isn't the point, being honest, and accurate, and observant is what's important. If a reporter doesn't give us the benefit of what they saw and what they think about it, then what value do they have? This is not to greenlight or forgive bias or predijuce, obviously. That's not being honest or accurate. Bias is for Op Eds, and can be found on both sides of the ideological divide.Subjectivity is valuable when it's intelligent and honest. I think listening to the other side is vital, not just a box checking exercise, which exercise is too often skipped these days frankly, under the protective cover of "not wanting to spread misinformation." That phrase is itself too often disingenuous --- where is the line between something verifiably untrue or just something we don't like hearing? Defining that line --- honestly --- would go a very long way to healing the awful disconnect and problems in our society, and greatly help bring back civility in public discourse, on both sides.

• Misinformation's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 01/13/2022)
  

  This is a great piece Joe. And a perfect presentation of the dilemma.I think freedom of speech should be as almost absolute as it is (it's not absolute), and misinformation has to be better defined and identified, because there's a difference between out and out factually untrue and unsupportable information, and opinions and conclusions and extrapolations that one doesn't agree with. The latter, even if unpleasant and unpopular, should be heard, for us to have meaningful and constructive debate as a society. We mustn't be afraid of words. (And of course I'm not implying that you were saying that.)There are already 17 forms of unprotected speech, for which there is no First Amendment defense, so I'm not talking about inciting riots or panic in confined spaces, or threatening to kill, nor slander, libel, lying to Federal Law Enforcement, etc (which are specific and punishable forms of misinformation). And I think continued perpetuation of obvious lies, like about the 2020 election, which incite violence and intimidation (and pose as justification to pervert elections in the future) should also be prosecutable, in the way that slander is egregious and deliberate misinformation.But alternate opinions? They are the lifeblood of human evolution. Debate is good. We invariably learn from it, and we never learn from shutting it down.

• 'Trump' Post-Presidency Brand Value Plummets In Every Category by Joe Mandese (Marketing Politics Weekly on 05/03/2021)
  

  Very interesting, and, frankly, very encouraging. Because it means America is not as lost as we might have feared! Can you imagine if his brand value went up after that shit show of a presidency. 

• It's Quiet On Twitter, But That Doesn't Mean There's Peace by Kaila Colbin (Media Insider on 01/29/2021)
  

  Kaila, this is a fantastically written and reasoned article, and you are 100 percent correct. Don't let bruised ego, knee jerk reactions against anything liberal bother you! What in God's name do these people find wrong in liberalism? EVERY single advancement in this country, from declaring it a country, through the abolition of slavery and the creation of the social security net to the right for all people to marry has been a liberal notion, regardless of which party came up with and instituted it. You can only be against liberal ideals (like I said, America itself being the foundation stone of those) if you percieve in some way they will cut into an advantage you have, or think you have. Or you're a racist, of course, we get the objections then...The American society has been built with bricks of liberal ideas, of ways to improve the average person's life. Who, seriously, is against that? And why? This isn't about not liking Hilary Clinton, or Joe Biden, or AOC --- there are arguments for all those --- it's about not liking your fellow human being enough to see them get a foothold in the same life as you.

• 'Rolling Stone' Launches Blogger Network For Paying 'Thought Leaders' by (Publishers Daily on 01/26/2021)
  

  This is an interesting story and I've been reading about it the last several days. I personally think they are full of shit and simply prostituting the venerable brand. It's... we'll, it's mostly just disappointing. The publication became hollow and dull and uninspired when Wenner left. It just gave up the ghost. Now this is a cynical raping of the legacy. It's becoming like one of those old local cable channels, whose sole programming after 11 at night was infomercials.

• Optimizing Influencer Marketing, Social, Content Budgets In 2021 by Nea Barman (MAD on 01/14/2021)
  

  C'mon! This isn't a "commentary", or even, to be generous, a contribution! It's an unpaid for (or did you pay for it?) infomercial! Your company exists to promote influencers! That's what you sell. This entire "article" is a sales pitch.For the record, it wasn't even that good a sales pitch. But mostly I don't understand why Mediapost allows this kind of egregous self promotion. Luckily it's easy to see through. But, you know, still...

• Why Trumpism Is Here To Stay, And What Brands Should Do About It by Joe Mandese (RTBlog on 11/09/2020)
  

  Excellent piece Joe. But I think too much weight is given to Trumpism, and I don't think all the 70 million plus votes he recieved were all for, frankly, him. I think a large percentage of people simply didn't want a Democrat slash liberal to win, and thought Biden was going to take America too far left (he won't, and some of his harshest criticism I predict will be from the far, far left, like AOC, who are actually as out of touch with the rest of America as their critics say). Or they were erroneously led to believe he was going to defund the police, or lockdown America and strangle small businesses. And Biden, who I certainly wanted to win, didn't do a great job of disabusing them of that. He could've have been stronger, more emphatic there. I daresay only half to maybe slightly over of the 70M+ voters who pulled Trump's lever were actually pulling for Trump. I think the rest voted against Joe Biden, either passionately or just reflexively.As for how brands "react" --- why react at all? If you're a box of cereal, who cares what your politics are. My main concern is that you don't overcharge for your box of damn cereal! Seriously, Ben and Jerry's is not going to become a beacon of conservatism, and Walmart isn't going to go all fuzzy and sensitive on us. Everyone in between should just be who and what they are, and stop the navel gazing. We're too polarized in this country as it is, I don't think we need Tide's politcal angst as well.

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