Denny Hatch Associates, Inc.
P.O. Box 63578, Philadelphia, PA 19147
215/627-9103; Fax: 215/627-6610
dennyhatch@aol.com * www.pricelineandthemedia.com

A Personal Note to the Media

Dear Colleague,

   My reporting on priceline.com founder Jay Walker goes back nearly 20 years when he was an advertising salesman and I was publisher of a newsletter on direct mail, WHO’S MAILING WHAT!. My December 1998 cover story on Jay in Target Marketing magazine served as the backgrounder for virtually all the feature stories that followed.

   The crux of PRICELINE.COM: A Layman's Guide to Manipulating the Media is found in a paragraph towards the end of the book. After recounting the angst and guilt that major publications felt as a result of the dishonest reporting by such "dirtball journalists" as Jayson Blair, Foster Winans, Janet Cooke, Mike Barnicle, Patricia Smith, and Stephen Glass, I pose this question:

But what of writers and reporters who enthusiastically rewrite press releases from companies whose business they do not understand and call it news, sending the stock price into the stratosphere and causing investors to get hosed? Where the plagiarists and liars cause embarrassment and give their publications a black eye, in my opinion they do not begin to wreak the havoc in the lives and livelihoods of their readers that is done by financial and business editors who hire ill-equipped writers and allow them to be ventriloquists’ dummies.

   If you would like a review copy of PRICELINE.COM: A Layman’s Guide to Manipulating the Media, e-mail me with your name, address and affiliation and I will contact the publisher with your information.

Sincerely,

Denny
dennyhatch@aol.com