Last Martha item: I guess it should come as no surprise that an image I posted on this weblog almost two years ago is getting lots of hits today. In June, 2002, the first news items about the “scandal” corresponded with my acquisition of Photoshop Elements. So, my first, and frankly best, expermintation with illustrating a blog post, was the one on the left. (You can click here for a larger view.) I titled it, “Martha in Orange,” and it appears to be responding to the image search for “Martha and Jail”.

Corporate crimes, personal crimes: Dan Ackman of forbes.com points out the irony that Martha Stewart has been convicted of crimes that were personal, not corporate, and the market value of her company has been shaved by one-third, while Tyco, whose CEO Dennis Kozlowski is accused of corporate crimes that put nearly $170 million of stokeholders’ money in his and another executive’s pockets, has seen its market value double. Such is the price for being a leader of a cult of personality. Speaking of which, note that in the picture to the left, taken today as she left the courthouse after a meeting with her probation officer, Martha whips out an umbrella bearing the logos of her media properties: a sure sign that she’s a student of the “no such thing as bad publicity” school of promotion.

Flunking maganomics: After months of trying to explain that it is a positive development when an industry receives more revenues for selling less product, I had given up trying. Until a few months ago, every time MediaPost’s Larry Dobrow reported that “advertising pages are down” in magazines with the buried lead that, oh, by the way, advertising revenues are up, I would comment that such a development in any other sector would be touted as “increased margins,” “more productivity,” and “the end of discounting.” But, my cause is a lost one. Again, today, he does so again.)

To Dobrow, more revenue for less advertising pages does not mean the obvious: that publications were giving away unsold inventory last year. To him, it does not mean that such inventory is now being sold. To him, it means that “there’s really no reason for me to think that things will get better sooner…” (as he quotes someone saying).

I will go on record once more as saying, “Revenues are the only metrics that matter in magazine publishing. It is the only thing that pays salaries. It is the only thing that is reflected on a company’s income statement and balance sheet. The number of advertising pages is a smoke and mirrors metric. Get over it.”

Covered: I’ll leave tax blogging to my fellow Nashvillan, Bill Hobbs, but this morning, I nearly swallowed whole my bagel at Brueggers when I noticed at the newsstand a photo of someone who looks a lot like me (except a little heavier and older and with less hair) on the front page of the Nashville Business Journal. I thought I would be remiss not to point in the directiion of this tax story. Thanks to reporter Philip Nannie (and photographer Todd Stringer) for covering an overlooked and positive result of tax reforms passed last year. I’m most proud of the quote Philip attributes to me (which means, I assume, I actually said it) in the final line of the story: “If you want to create jobs, you have to unleash investment and the best place to do that is in a small business.”