In my recent post regarding Inaugural balls in Washington, DC, I included a link to a press release regarding Louis Gossett, Jr.'s withdrawal from The Inaugural Purple Ball in which he officially states:
"there is a notable lack of diversity both on the host committee and the entertainment, which does not reflect either the mission of the Eracism Foundation or President-elect Obama's vision for America."
To my surprise, today I found a press release about The Inaugural Purple Ball (IPB) in the comments section of that post, either from Ilene Proctor, of Ilene Proctor & Associates :: International Public Relations Services, who is Director of Media Relations & Publicity for the IPB, or from someone attempting to discredit her by making it look like she doesn't understand how to play the web game in an ethical manner.
Now, this may not actually be damage control. This could simply be a weak ass "public relations" move by someone who's simply checking Google for "Inaugural Purple Ball" and sp@mming the comments section wherever they give him or her room to operate.
Interestingly enough, after Mr. Gossett and the Eracism Foundation issued their initial press release, Ms. Proctor attempted damage control by telling gossip columnists at the Washington Post that "all disagreements ….. are bygone" and that Louis Gossett, Jr. would be at the event as originally announced.
Apparently negotiations didn't go so well leading to a follow-up press release from Lou's people clarifying that, no, Louis Gossett, Jr. and The Eracism Foundation would not be participating.
And then the sp@m started. Too bad I can't call it racist sp@m. Now that would be some serious linkbait!
Bad looks all around for Ilene Proctor and the Inaugural Purple Ball.
Official Site: The Eracism Foundation
o, this is Ilene PRoctor, publicist for the IPB.We tried very hard to accomodate, in every way, Mr. Gossett, but he would not be deterred from thinking there was a lack of diversity regarding our ball. Apparent5ly, Mr. Gossett believes that Hill Harper, Angela Bassett, Terrence Howard, Herbie Hancock are masquerading as blacks on screen and do not fitis definition of diversity. n any case, we substitued the UNCF as our beneficiary and all’s very right with the IPB. In any case, We have been sold out for days
Thanks for sharing. Since you sp@mmed me and seem incapable of addressing that fact, now you really are banned.
By the way, most celebrities just go along for the ride and anybody that couldn’t sell out an event at this inauguration would be pathetic so you haven’t accomplished anything here except to further document your cluelessness.
Ilene, you are so clueless. I feel sorry for anybody paying you to do any online publicity.
You didn’t send me a release, you posted it in the comments section of my blog. That’s not a comment and that’s not where press releases go.
I’d tell you where you should send them except I don’t want anything from you showing up in my inbox.
Legitimate bloggers consider posting releases in their comments section to be sp@m and if you don’t know that, you need to get a clue.
It’s not a matter of what software says it is, it’s a matter of what the community you’re trying to reach says it is.
This comment of your’s showed up in the sp@m folder cause I’ve marked you as a source of sp@m.
I’m only posting your comment to show that you really don’t know what’s up and you’re just digging yourself deeper every step of the way.
EXCEPT FOR ONE THING:
You actually say you’re sorry so, even if you are clueless, at least you’re trying.
That’s more than I can say for all sorts of other publicists and website owners who don’t know how to handle themselves when their mistakes are revealed.
NOTE:
If you do figure out the correct place to send press releases, though I won’t cover them here, I will treat them fairly in terms of considering them for my press release sites.
I’m working really hard to separate folks that sp@m me here and at my prohiphop.com email address from folks submitting to Hip Hop PR Wire and the Hip Hop Press related sites.
It’s tough but I recognize that folks don’t all agree on what’s sp@m, especially publicists [lol], and that most people are doing the best they can so I don’t penalize them there if they screw up here.
And I’m not really saying this for Ilene but for all the publicists I serve on my other sites.
But ProHipHop is my house and folks should best keep that in mind.