When not to hire a publicist?

The case of Terri Schiavo is the poster child for the importance of having good publicists on the payroll. If you thought that six years of consistent losses in every court system that would take a pleading would spell the end of the legal struggle you would be wrong because having a good publicist opens up a whole new front; the legislative and executive branchs. Remember that the legistlative and executive branches are completely susceptible to the kind of lobbying and manipulation that is the strength of publicists -- no need to attempt to manipulate the facts to influence Governor Bush or the members of the Florida legislature; they don't care about them!

But this article is not about when to hire publicists but when you don't need to. Take Tom Sneddon, for example, the Santa Barbara county district attorney who is carrying on a jihad against Michael Jackson. At one point, he had hired a publicist but that plan was dropped due to public outcry. Instead, it appears that Sneddon has a "special friend" in the media in the form of Diane Dimond, Court TV's "reporter" on the Jackson case.

But even with anti-Jackson partisans in the media, Sneedon's case looks pretty weak. I don't claim to have any knowledge of how prosecutors select the cases to pursue but I have to think that this one is a poor one by any measure.