Martha Stewart - Felon or America's Sweetheart?

[ChileMass]

The latest celebrity scandal - Martha is released from Federal prison! What are your thoughts?

Personally, I can't believe how much positive press she and her companies are getting from the media. Her company's stock went up by $3 the other day!!! People are interviewd on TV gushing about how unfair it was that she went to jail, and how much they are looking forward to her "new Fall line of fashions and home goods"!!! Are you kidding me? Is this some weird joke?

What happened to the days when, after some bigshot got out of jail, they went away in shame and perhaps in 10 or 20 years re-emerged in a very reduced limelight? On the Today show this morning some friend-of-Martha/personal spinmiester was saying how much "pent-up creativity" Martha has and how "re-energized" she is after having 5 months away from cell phones, cameras, etc. This is ridiculous. Fame and money do crazy things to famous people, but I always thought regular folks would spurn trash like her. I don't think I ever bought anything from her in the past, and I certainly won't in the future.....

For some reason, this has gotten under my skin. If this is too negative, sorry about that, but I'm wondering if others feel like this or if we should just let her do her thing....

 

[dmc]

When your countries leaders are a bunch of money grubbing corporate crooks... I guess it makes it OK for people to laud money grubbing corporate crooks...

 

[riverc0il]

ChileMass, i am right with you on this one. i was listening to the news on the radio this morning and couldn't believe how much her company's stock has increased while she was in prison. with all this press, she is going to reap a huge windfall of money, fame, and business. some punishment, huh? going to jail may have been the worst thing the jury could have done to punish her. if she walked away from the jury with a not guilty verdict, everyone would have thought the jury was going easy on her because she is a star. she would have walked away tainted.

now the perception is she is a strong woman overcoming a hurdle. america loves crap stories like this because it gives people false hope that they too can over come their own personal prisons and rise above themselves and others and succeed against over whelming odds.

what the media will not fill you in on though is this simply fact: her new found success is a product of the media, not anything that she herself did. this is america at it's worst, trying to feel better about itself by lifting someone else up through the media so people can live vicariously through their media outlets. shameful.

now, let me tell you how i really feel

 

[ChileMass]

River -

It's insane. What do I tell my daughters? "Oh, honey - don't worry - go ahead and buy that $400 Martha Stewart hanky cuz poor Martha needs and deserves the money. She was in jail, you know....." What crap. It tells people that if you have enough balls, money and lawyers you can get away with anything, and if you have even more money and can afford TV airtime, you can will away any sentence the courts can give you. Shameless.....

Just don't any of you regular people actually try this because YOU will wind up doing real time if you get caught.....

 

[dmc]

Didnt she just do time?
And isnt she got a thing around her ankle?

Just tell your kids she got busted - did her time - and now she's on probation...

I don't why people support her...
I dont know why people support our president...

This country is going down the S-hole...

 

[ski_resort_observer]

The stock price of her company might have doubled in the few months but Omnimedia as a company is in the toilet. Lost 60 million in 2004, future looks very shaky.

The sad truth is what she did goes on every day...she just got caught. Everyone seems to hate GWB but he still got elected...what's up with that?

 

[Max]

If no one bought her products, if no one watched her TV show, if no one buys her upcoming book, if no one invested in her stock, she'd fade off into anonymity. The fault lies with the American consumer.

Maybe we ought to invite her to participate in Flags On The 48 this year!

 

[riverc0il]

max hits the nail on the proverbial head. in the country today, how we vote with our resources is more important to deciding future events than anything, likely even voting.

 

[MtnMagic]

The spin doctors were working to improve her image long before Stewart went to camp cupcake. People are actually calling her brave instead of a criminal. Here's an article that I just read here.
=======================================

Prison May Have Helped Stewart's Image

NEW YORK, Mar. 6, 2005

(AP) At trial, she came off as Mean Martha: rude, demanding, cheap, the kind of person who would threaten to pull her business from a brokerage because she didn't like the music she heard when her call was on hold. Then she went to prison and turned into St. Martha: advocate for the oppressed, friend to the lonely and forager for wild greens to spice up the jailhouse food.

On Friday, her first day outside the lockup, she waved graciously, chatted amiably and served hot cocoa to the press. The transformation of Martha Stewart's image dates to five months ago, when she called a news conference to announce she was reporting to prison early, despite a pending legal appeal.

Wearing a white suit against a backdrop of color swatches, Stewart projected a change in attitude that has helped repair her reputation and propel her company forward again.

"Going to jail was a good thing," says Paul Argenti, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. "She had to do that, and fighting it was a bad idea."

Indeed, stock prices for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which had lagged, quickly doubled. And as she worked off time in a West Virginia prison, scrubbing floors and picking dandelion greens, she found herself popular enough to be given starring roles in two upcoming TV shows.

"The thing about Americans is we like throwing you to the ground, and making you cry uncle," image consultant Eric Dezenhall said. "But if you do cry uncle we'll let you up."

Stewart's tasteful, if chilly, image had taken a beating in trial testimony. Jurors laughed when Douglas Faneuil, an assistant to Stewart's stockbroker, told the court she went into a tirade when she was put on hold, complaining about how bad the music was and threatening to leave if it wasn't changed.

The daily news coverage of her entering the courthouse, accompanied by details about her pricey handbags or stylish heels, didn't help.

"People already knew she was a perfectionist," said Melissa Click, a research instructor at the University of Missouri-Columbia who is writing a book about Stewart. "But they didn't necessarily want to hear that she was mean."

When she was sentenced in July, an unrepentant Stewart said her "small personal matter" had become "an almost fatal circus event of unprecedented proportions." She also took the opportunity to boldly pitch her products and magazine.

The same day, her Web site erroneously posted a draft of a letter she wrote to the judge, saying her punishment was "unfortunately" in the judge's hands.

This was not the prim, proper and controlled Martha Stewart who had amassed a billion-dollar domestic empire by being adored as an expert tastemaker in millions of homes around the country.

On Sept. 15, Stewart asked the judge to start her sentence as soon as possible. She lamented she would miss her dogs and her horses, her cats and her canaries, and wanted to be home in time to plant a spring garden.

But she also came closer than ever to contrition, saying she wanted to end the "immense difficulty, immense sacrifice and immense agony" the ordeal had caused those close to her.

Three weeks later, Stewart was fingerprinted and strip-searched at the federal prison in Alderson, W.Va., then assigned a bunk bed in a building with 60 inmates and two showers.

By all accounts, she made friends there. At Christmas, in an open letter published on a Web site, she asked her fans to think of her fellow inmates and seek sentencing reforms.

She left prison Thursday in a cape made by a fellow inmate, according to a friend, and she paid for a flatbed truck that would give photographers a better view, the airport manager said.

Back at her estate in New York, Stewart barely waited for the sun to come up before delighting the encamped reporters and photographers by appearing outside with her dog and horses and taking time to discuss lemons and cappuccino. She even sent out paper cups of hot cocoa.

At an investment club called ESP in Pelham, N.Y., about 30 miles from where Stewart will spend the next five months under house arrest, members aren't about to give up their Martha Stewart stock.

"She's got a lot of good years ahead of her," said Amelia Galiani, the club's treasurer. "Sixty-three is not the end of the world. I think she probably will have a good comeback."

___

Associated Press writer Erin McClam contributed to this report

 

[ctenidae]

I don't like her products, and I believe she's a Grade-A biatch, but you have to respect her ability to build a major company out of a few cookbooks and a catering business.
The biggest problem I have with her whole trial is what it covered up. In the end, she was sent to jail for lying about a crime she wasn't convicted of. In the mean time, The boys from Enron, Global Crossing, ImClone and Worldcom are out. The SEC needed to look like they were really cracking down on the shenanigans, and Martha Stewart was a big enough public figure without any real power, so she was an easy target. Sure, she did the crime, and now she's done the time, unlike many others.
She should have known better- I mean, she used to have a seat on the NYSE. Plus, had she held onto the ImClone stock instead of getting greedy, she would have made about 3 times as much after Erbitux got approved, which they all knew it would.
The real punishment isn't the jail time, anyway. Unless her appeal goes through, she's barred from running the company that bears here name, and she's barred from dealing in securities anymore. Taking the company away from the control freak is what's going to kill her. As for MSO stock going up, of course it did- the market figures Martha's back in control, there's lots of fresh publicity, and everyone hopes she can whip her daughter into shape. If the appeal doesn't work, the stock will drop again. If it does go through, expect another jump.

Max does have it right- vote with your wallets. You don't like Martha? Don't buy her stuff. You think Wal-Mart is evil? Don't shop there. You don't like BushCo and Chimpy McFlightsuit? Don't buy the 12 mpg SUV that couldn't go offroad if you pushed it off a cliff.

 

[lotr]

:blink: What? There are more important things going on, but...DIE MARTHA! :uzi: I'm boycotting her stuff.

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

FEDERAL FELON.

She was rightfully convicted accordingly of insider trading and lying to the United States Government (SEC).

And although she may have nice ideas with her line of work, I do not believe she should be permitted to be an Officer a publicly owned corporation if there are laws prohibiting it.

 

[JimG.]

FEDERAL FELON.

She was rightfully convicted accordingly of insider trading and lying to the United States Government (SEC).

And although she may have nice ideas with her line of work, I do not believe she should be permitted to be an Officer a publicly owned corporation if there are laws prohibiting it.

There are, but her case is on appeal so she can still run her company. I agree with you, but this is such a slice of modern day Americana it's kind of funny to watch.

 

[hammer]

She should have known better- I mean, she used to have a seat on the NYSE. Plus, had she held onto the ImClone stock instead of getting greedy, she would have made about 3 times as much after Erbitux got approved, which they all knew it would.

This makes me think of the whole mess with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. In both cases, either they lacked all common sense or were so arrogant that they thought that they would not get caught or penalized...

 

[ctenidae]

FEDERAL FELON.

She was rightfully convicted accordingly of insider trading and lying to the United States Government (SEC).

Not to nitpick, but she was just convicted of obstruction (or perjury? I forget, and am too lazy to look it up- it doesn't really matter, anyway), not insider trading. However, both are federal crimes, and so she is not allowed to be an officer of a public company. The only real reason for her to pursue the appeal is to regain her right to run her company. If she wins on appeal, then I say let the market judge her. I think the market will be more lenient than the judge/SEC was.

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

...her right to run her company...

I don't believe it is her company. :wink:

 

[ctenidae]

She still owns something like 80%, which is why the stock performance never really reflected the company's performance, and the IPO didn't generate nearly as much cash as the buzz seemed to indicate. She's a control freak, no doubt, though in a way you can't blame her- she did build the thing up on her own. If she doesn't win the appeal, it's going to kill her to have ownership control, but not be able to run it.

 

[Haksaw]

Americans Love the underdog. They Love anyone who rises in fortune, becomes a success, and a milonaire. Then - Americans Love to take someone who is successful, and destroy them.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

Omnimedia IS Martha Stewart....At the start of the week her stake was worth about 1B..this week she lost about 250M...on paper. She owns 62% of the shares having transferred most of it to her daughter before she went to prison. Make no mistake she is in charge.

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

Omnimedia IS Martha Stewart....At the start of the week her stake was worth about 1B..this week she lost about 250M...on paper. She owns 62% of the shares having transferred most of it to her daughter before she went to prison. Make no mistake she is in charge.

QUESTION?

Should OMNIMEDIA then pay her legal bills? or her Daughter? :wink: