Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Newsroom Body Count - Why is this still news in mainstream, new media

Every day, both mainstream media such as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and new media such as Mediabistro.com carry a detailed body count of layoffs at the nation's newspapers and print magazines.  Today, for instance, Shira Ovide reports in the WSJ that the LOS ANGELES TIMES will cut about 10-percent of its 1300 workforce.

HARTFORD COURANT - Very Black Wednesday

Four years ago this month, it was in the HARTFORD COURANT that my "comeback" "piece on pet grief was published.  What came back was my professional self-confidence.  And it was several months earlier that one of its reporters Sue Campbell did a feature on how my once wildly successful communications boutique had tanked.  She pleaded for homes for animals I could no longer afford. That was then.  The now is good, at least for me.  I have a new business.  It is earning plenty.  And I did the work on my "inner technology," as one spiritual adviser called it, to hopefully prevent another implosion.  With me live three cats who were abandoned.

Ghostwriters - Obama, Fiorina boasts not using us, Miller doesn't give us enough credit

Ghostwriters, just like marketers, are used plenty in America - but loathed.  Those who wish to heap praise on someone's book note that he - Barack Obama - or she - Carly Fiorina - didn't use a ghostwriter.  Those who want to shine with a bright light - like Steve Miller - don't acknowledge the key role a ghostwriter played in pulling a book together. Regarding the latter, in the July PORTFOLIO, Roger Lowenstein, in reviewing Miller's "The Turnaround Kid," notes, "One wonders why his excellent ghostwriter, Michael D'Antonio, isn't mentioned on the cover or the title page, only hidden in the acknowledgments." [Can reach Lowenstein at Rlowenstein@portfolio.com.]

What Very Well Paid Commercial Writers Know & I Just Figured Out

Call it the writer's epiphany.  One day I am a struggling commercial writer [that's my day job in addition to being a struggling insight writer].  The next day I am very well paid, and in hot demand.  The realization which has been the great divide is that clients want me not only to help present them or their products/services in the best light.  They also assume that in that package I will be their best audience.  It's no surprise that such a wake-up call took me more than 20 years of commercial writing to hear and heed.  After all, writers are utter narcissists.  We want to be the star.  And it kills our compensation and even marketability to expect clients to be our best audience.

Remember when we all sounded like Tom Wolfe

Now I find out.  "I trust my writing most and others seem to trust it most when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am,"  Kurt Vonnegut.  Actually I found out that I had to take the risk of using my own voice in 2003 - after decades of being a mediocre imitator of Tom Wolfe.  The cruel irony is that in order to be a writer, we have to be outrageous narcissists.  But most of us fear to let the world know - or ourselves - who we are. 

Punch Up Your Op-Eds, PR Folks - Robert J. Thomson New Editor at WSJ

Rupert Murdoch has appointed Robert J. Thomson, who has tabloid ink flowing through his veins, to be top editor at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  That changes everything in the public relations game.  Our clients want to get into the opinion-editorial section of that conservative bible of business.  Our new challenge will be to balance what the buttoned-down clients will approve with what a tabloidized WSJ will accept.  Not easy.

End of an Era at WaPo - Woodward taking a package

Along with about 100 other Posties, Robert Woodward is accepting a buyout package from THE WASHINGTON POST.  An era is over.  Ben Bradlee is retired.  Carl Bernstein never could get back his original momentum, it seems.  And it's the blogosphere not the Establishment Beltway newspapers which create influence and power.

Dominick Dunne - Does Diana's Inquest for May VANITY FAIR

Not only is Dominick Dunne back at VANITY FAIR.  He's focused on the subject - the Diana inquest - and not on himself.  So his deconstruction of the mood, players, and agendas at that investigation of the Princess' death is Dunne at his best.

Those old-line opinion-editorials in THE WALL STREET, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Influence and even power have changed - in how we get them, keep them, grow them - for both us and for our clients.  Not everyone who should realize that has.  That's why I still receive requests from public-affairs agencies and think tanks to create and place opinion-editorials in the print versions of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES and other brandname national publications.  As recently as three years ago, getting an op-ed placed in that pricey media real estate meant influence and power, both for the client whose name was on it and for us communicators who pulled that off.

Dominick Dunne - No Longer MIA

Dominick Dunne has been located.  He's finishing up a book.  That means he is on sabbatical from VANITY FAIR.  Will he be back at VF covering another trial?