PLAYBOY HEADLINE 'OFFENDS' JASON WHITLOCK You truly have to admire the way Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock is able to shamelessly plug himself on a regular basis. Whether he is doing a radio or TV show or writing for another publication, he always has one eye on public relations. Regular readers have grown used to this "Enough about me, now you can talk about me" pattern since he came to the Star in 1994. They are also very accustomed to his ability to selectively use race to advance his personal agenda. His latest opportunity to feign righteous indignation was to announce via an entire column in the Star that he has written an article that will appear in Playboy. But he lets readers know he is horribly upset at the headline the magazine has decided to use for it. (Journalism 101: Editors write headlines. Writers write.) PR folks around the country must be drooling over the way he is able to generate such great publicity for himself and Playboy. Playboy is probably going to throw a party in his honor at Hugh Heffner's mansion. As they say, you can't buy that kind of hype. If a normal person tried to pitch that story to a newspaper they would simply tell him to buy an ad. Ironically, in his Star column Whitlock says he was given two options by Playboy: 1. Refuse to cooperate with the media campaign; 2, Criticize Playboy for the headlines in subsequent interviews. His column clearly shows that he has decided to embrace #2. Of course, by doing that he is fully cooperating with the media campaign. For Whitlock it is a win-win. Ironically, although he says he is terribly hurt by all this, he never once said he would refuse to write for Playboy again. Funny how that works... 05-03-2008
May. 2, 2008 Playboy headline misleads readers By JASON WHITLOCK The Kansas City Star Chris Napolitano, editorial director of Playboy magazine, is committed to stirring a racial controversy in the next issue of Hugh Hefner�s favorite publication. Napolitano, No. 2 behind Hef at the magazine, intends to use a 5,000-word column I wrote challenging the wisdom of America�s drug war, world-leading incarceration rate and brutal prison system as an excuse to fan racial flames and distract readers from the real issues raised in the piece. It�s all eerily similar to the Golfweek-noose cover of a few months ago, except Napolitano�s scheme is more calculated and deliberate. He�s going to do this over my objections and the strong disapproval of his executive editor, Lee Froehlich, the man who worked with me crafting the piece. Napolitano is going to do this being fully aware that he is being completely unfair to the sources who took genuine risks working with me on the story. He�s been told that his framing of the story will prevent the majority of people from digesting the substance of what was written. He doesn�t care. He has a sexy headline he wants to promote and magazines to sell. So on May 9, this headline will greet Playboy readers on the cover: �Jason Whitlock, The Black KKK.� On the inside of the magazine over my column, the headline will read: �The Black KKK.� A subheadline will state: �Hip Hop is killing Black America, and it�s time to do something about it.�
