The Women’s March Comes Up With The Worst Attempt At Damage Control EVER

Earlier this week, Tablet Magazine published a pretty comprehensive takedown of everything that’s wrong with the Women’s March.

A blockbuster by @tabletmag on the hostile takeover of the Women’s March, its shady finances and how anti-Semitism has plagued the organization since the very beginning. Worth your time: https://t.co/La5VDOZpYg

— Andrea González-Ramírez (@andreagonram) December 11, 2018

It is SCATHING – and worth the read.

The crumbling organization is now trying to enact some damage control… and it’s not going well.

Who else got this weird email claiming to have contradicting information on @TabletMag‘s story on the Women’s March but requiring an off-the-record agreement to share any of it? I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. pic.twitter.com/dWqyg23XtT

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 12, 2018

This is very unusual. I don’t understand why they want me to go off the record if they have some sort of contradicting information. Heck, I didn’t even write the piece. I didn’t even tweet about it. I retweeted others who tweeted about it.

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 12, 2018

This is the weirdest attempt at damage control I’ve ever seen. If you have information that supposedly clears your client then you should share it publicly instead of trying to go off-the-record with every reporter who tweeted (or even RTed) the story. It makes no sense.

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 12, 2018

They also claim the original Tablet story is being corrected but there aren’t any corrections or notes on the story so I’m very skeptical of that claim. Here is the story so you can see for yourself: https://t.co/sOVxrbZQlS

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 12, 2018

NOTE Tablet has now issued their corrections.

Dec. 12, 3:30 p.m.:

This article has been amended to reflect the following:

The Women’s March disputes that the Los Angeles and Georgia chapters are no longer part of the national network. Attempts to reach the LA and Georgia chapters of the Women’s March were unsuccessful at the time of this update. According to a report in Refinery29, the LA chapter is currently in a trademark dispute with Women’s March Inc.—and a related email from March 2018, seen by Tablet today, includes LA chapter head Emiliana Guereca strongly implying that there is no “working relationship.” The following chapters of the Women’s March were not included in the list of regional groups that had disaffiliated with the Women’s March: Florida, Portland, Barcelona, Canada, and Women’s March GLOBAL.

An earlier version misstated the sum of sponsorship money and misidentified its source. The correct sum is $167,299, not $169,000, and the source was the Gathering for Justice, not the Women’s March.

An earlier version incorrectly stated that “None of the other women in attendance would speak openly to Tablet about the meeting.” In fact, at press time, Tablet had contacted or spoken to six out of the seven people present at the meeting. That seventh person, Cassady Fendlay, reached today, offered a description of the events that aligns with the version described in the piece.

An earlier version of this story misstated the chronology of Vanessa Wruble’s departure from the Women’s March. Wruble remained a member of the Women’s March until late January 2017.

Not ONE of those corrections changes the gist of this piece in the slightest.

But seriously…

Judging from my mentions, they sent this email out to quite a lot of people…

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) December 12, 2018

THIS IS SO WEIRD.

LOL at this ham-fisted, amateur PR response to @tabletmag‘s expose on the anti-Semitism that forms the foundation of the Women’s March. “Promise to delete your tweet about an article we don’t like, and we might send you ‘facts’ you’re not allowed to publish because journalism.” pic.twitter.com/GMMD5bT1Cg

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 12, 2018

Here are some ACTUAL FACTS:

One of the founders of the Women’s March reportedly claimed that “Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade,” a racist conspiracy theory long popular with acolytes of anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. https://t.co/YL7FLbvL7B

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 12, 2018

Here’s my offer, @thecaffeina: if the Women’s March founders and your PR firm publicly denounce Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and the anti-Semitic ideology they preach, and if their acolytes are immediately purged from the Women’s March, I’ll retweet the denunciation.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 12, 2018

Here’s my offer, @thecaffeina: if the Women’s March founders and your PR firm publicly denounce Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and the anti-Semitic ideology they preach, and if their acolytes are immediately purged from the Women’s March, I’ll retweet the denunciation.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 12, 2018

SO MANY people got it:

Here’s my offer, @thecaffeina: if the Women’s March founders and your PR firm publicly denounce Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and the anti-Semitic ideology they preach, and if their acolytes are immediately purged from the Women’s March, I’ll retweet the denunciation.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 12, 2018

Uh what pic.twitter.com/fDvIu77Cgq

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) December 12, 2018

Miriam works for BUZZFEED, by the way, and even she thinks it’s super weird.

I too received this bizarre email. I didn’t even tweet it, I retweeted someone else’s tweet. pic.twitter.com/Whg0oNoVEW

— Christmas Rou-dolph🦌🎄💜💜 (@crousselle) December 12, 2018

me

— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) December 12, 2018

This should be a case study in how to piss off journalists and draw more attention to a bad story. https://t.co/82ygZbSfLg

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) December 12, 2018

And it gets even weirder…

The PR firm that sent the email out is co-founded by Van Jones:

Looks like Van Jones’ PR firm is going to war against Tablet for its blistering report on the Women’s March https://t.co/q8CP0lOkjx

— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) December 12, 2018

THIS is what desperation looks like, folks.

The Women’s March is over.