What would we do without ‘branding experts’? Excuse me, I borrowed that line from WSJ Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web’s James Taranto who uses it when linking to a headline regarding an expert saying something overwhelmingly obvious. As in, this quote (last paragraph) from today’s Newsday::

However, branding experts and image consultants advised G+J to move quickly to counter the trial’s negative effects. Anita K. Hersh, chief executive of Lister Butler Consulting in Manhattan, said, “Things came out about Gruner + Jahr that were more negative than Rosie being pushed to the edge, in a very stressful situation, and saying things that in retrospect would have been nicer not to have been said.

She forgot to mention other stuff, in retrospect, that would have been nicer not to have been said, like when the CFO admitted from the stand they cooked circulation numbers.

Why you’ve never read Business 2.0: CBS.MarketWatch.com’s Jon Friedman describes Business 2.0 as “the best magazine you’ve never read” and says that it, “personifies what Silicon Valley is all about: innovation.”

That may be true, but one area in which they seem to be less than innovative is their misunderstanding of the whole search-engine indexing thing. I suggest to Friedman (and to the magazine) that one reason no one reads it is this: A magazine that covers the emerging economy and puts their content behind a “cost-wall” displays a complete lack of understanding of what that new economy’s rules are.

I won’t waste your time with my opinions on this. Why should I when the master of this whole topic, Doc Searls, has already so eloquently described how Business 2.0 could continue to be the best magazine you’ve never read until they get a clue.

Airing it out: Speaking of my favorite Nashville drunk drivers, here’s an article about how the other one can launch the bomb. This is the type of story a Friday was made for.

Motherly advice: How’s this for driving under the influence of irony? Two months ago, Naomi Judd, mother of the drunk driver Wynonna Judd, was named to the “national board of advisors” of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, an organization comprised primarily of the mothers of victims of drunk drivers.

Wynonna (mug shot on left) , Naomi (middle), Ashley Judd (right, who has nothing to do with this story except being a sibling and daughter of the other two. However, how could I pass up the opportunity to gratuitiously post a picture of her on this weblog?)