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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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at Most Censored Press Releases - - - - McSweeney's recently received a very interesting message from a reader in Brazil: Did we, by any chance, have photographs available of the Flying Colonels? "Flying Colonels?" we said. "What in the world are the Flying Colonels?" The webmaster passed the inquiry along to the web site editor, and the web site editor, who knows nothing except how to delegate, passed the message right along to all the various department heads. A few hours later, the head of the department of Most Censored Press Releases wrote back, explaining that the Flying Colonels are a team of a professional skydivers, all of whom dress up as Colonel Sanders and travel the country to promote various new menu items available at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. It seems the reader in Brazil contacted us about the Flying Colonels because, many years ago, in 1999, Most Censored Press Releases determined that a certain press release concerning the activities of the Flying Colonels had been and was being censored in both the mainstream and alternative news media. And so the Most Censored Press Releases department head wrote back to the reader: We don't have any pictures of the Flying Colonels. A couple of years ago we ran a press release about the Flying Colonels in our most censored press release department. You might want to get in touch with KFC, and get pictures from their public relations department or agency. If you don't mind my asking, why do you need pictures of them? Hope you're well. Take care, MCPRDH - - - - Later that day, the reader wrote back: Hi there! First of all, what's your name? I already try to get in touch with KFC but I didn't get reply. If you know what's the e-mail of the public relations of KFC or what's the advertisement agency of KFC, please tell me. Well, answering your questions, I need these pictures for my university job to end my course. I'm from Brazil and I do Publicity & Advertisement, I'm in the last year, or better, last month to end this course. I did a job about Tricon (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC) and about his "Extreme Ads." For example: Pizza Hut: Put his logo in a NASA rocket. Taco Bell: Put a "Floating Target" at the ocean to wait the MIR re-entry. KFC: The "Flying Colonel's" to introduce the 5 new sandwiches. That's it! P.S.: Sorry about my English.... See you, Nivia - - - - Dear Nivia, I'm Paul, an editor at the magazine that republished the KFC press release. Let me try to find a publicity contact for you. Try this toll-Free Customer Service number (1-800-225-5532), and ask for a contact name/number for publicity or public relations. Or try this online form: http://www.kfc.com/int_comments.htm Or try the similar online form for Triconglobal International, the owners of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. Good luck on your project. Take care, Paul P.S. Your English is perfectly fine. No need to apologize. - - - - As it happens, the reader had already filled out the online forms, but received no answer from KFC or Triconglobal International. Furthermore, because she was in Brazil, she couldn't dial the 1-800 number. (Nivia, if you're reading this, I just had another idea: try to call Triconglobal at 502-874-8300. That's their main switchboard, in Louisville, Kentucky. Someone there, hopefully, should be able to connect you to public relations.) So, as you can see, we haven't really been able to help the reader. We tried, but in the end, we hadn't been much use. But we got to thinking: this reader couldn't find publicity information on the Flying Colonels. Yes, Most Censored Press Releases had done its part, doing what no other publication would do, republishing and, more importantly, making permanently available the original press release. Nevertheless, information about the Flying Colonels was still limited. For example, no pictures were available, anywhere. And if information about the Flying Colonels was still limited (read: being censored), did it not stand to reason that information on other press releases was similarly limited (read: was similarly being censored)? Yes, in fact, it did stand to reason. For too many months we had slacked on our promise to keep track of censored press releases. In truth, we grew complacent. But no more. Most Censored Press Releases flew into action again, looked around in the usual places, and found a number of press releases that, as this year ends and becomes another year, are being censored.
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