The Financial Times ran a column critical of Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman. The company’s marketing chief, Henry Gomez, threatened to cut the advertising it ran in the newspaper. Lucy Kellaway’s response is perfect.
My piece was not biased and I fear you misunderstand our business model. It is my editors’ steadfast refusal to consider the impact of stories on advertisers that makes us the decent newspaper we are. It is why I want to go on working here. It is why the FT goes on paying me.
Kellaway seems almost happy to have gotten such a direct threat in the first place, in an age of smarmy PR outreach and cold silence. But it’s no surprise that HP is the one to break ranks. When did it get its reputation for this sort of “nice ads you have there” nastiness?