Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

One reason I no longer subscribe to business magazines is that they always make suggestions for corporate improvement that are irrelevant or daydreaming, with a large dose of blather. David, bless his NEUHARTHIAN SOUL, combines all three. His suggestions for ESPNCORP are the usual gas: buybuybuy (radio stations, WWE, Nascar, a stake in CNN), "[h]ire animation executives who know how to tell a story," perhaps by enlisting Tinkerbell to wave her magic wand and invent them; make the company "more hospitable to live-action filmmakers" (translation: MAKE MORE R MOVIES -- but this was before the idiot Jack Fithian belched), and this scintillating suggestion: "Develop a workable model for ABC News." (Translation: if people were watching we wouldn't worry about MODELS.) In short, this is the kind of INSTANT CLICHE we expect of NEUHARTHIANS, and while it is not eligible for a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD because it does not directly SELL a property, we will give it HONORABLE MENTION for its BRILLIANT IDEAS.

On SECOND THOUGHT we WILL give it a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD (our THIRD this week) as it quotes the sales -- ANALYST Dennis McAlpine, who's almost as good as getting his name in the papers as his fellow sales -- ANALYST Jessica "Rife" Reif Cohen.