Harris Media

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Harris Media is a public relations company. "Harris Media specializes in online communications including website design, social networking, bulk email management, graphics and video creation, and online advertising placement and creatives."[1]

History

The company was founded in 2007-2008?.

Personnel

Copied from http://www.harrismediallc.com/?page_id=3 , January 2011.

Current and Former Clients

  • Joe Straus Texas House speaker [6]
  • Mike Montandon Former Mayor of North Las Vegas, Nevada, 2010, Republican gubernatorial candidate in the Nevada gubernatorial election, 2010[7]
  • Jeb Bradley Former Republican U.S. Representative for New Hampshire's 1st congressional district[8]
  • Keith Fimian Former 2008 and 2010 Republican nominee for Virginia's 11th congressional district [9]
  • Chris Thieneman Former 2010 Republican candidate for Mayor for the city of Louisville, Kentucky [10]
  • David Dewhurst 41st and current Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas [11]
  • Rick Scott 45th and current Republican Governor of the U.S. state of Florida [3]
  • Harry Wilson former unsuccessful candidate for NY State Comptroller 2010[12]
  • Gilbert Baker Republican State Senator for Arkansas' 30th District, unsuccessful 2010 candidate for U.S. Senate[13]
  • Colin M. Simpson Republican member of the Wyoming House of Representatives, unsuccessful 2010 candidate for governor[14]
  • Brian Dubie Republican 78th Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, unsuccessful 2010 candidate for governor[15]
  • Stan Clark unsuccessful Republican 2009 candidate for 64th District for the Virginia House of Delegates[16]
  • Earl Sholley unsuccessful Republican 2008 candidate for United States House of Representatives of Massachusetts District 4[17]
  • Dana Walsh unsuccessful Republican 2008 and 2010 candidate for United States House of Representatives from California District 8[18]
  • William Harrison Binnie unsuccessful Republican 2010 candidate for United States Senate from New Hampshire[19]
  • Bob McDonnell 71st and current Republican Governor of Virginia [20]
  • Bill McCollum former Florida Attorney General, 2010 Florida gubernatorial candidate[21]
  • Nicholas Van Campen Taylor Texas oil magnate, 2006 and 2010 candidate for Texas state legislature[22]
  • Tony Hartl owner of a tanning salon in Garland, Texas and author[23]
  • Harry Wilson (businessman) NYC Hedge Fund Manager, Massachusetts banker[24]

Possible clients or possible opponents of clients? (uncertain)

Activities

Deleting tweets

Harris Media has been known to delete tweets and engage in other scrubbing activity. [27]

Spin on Wikipedia

Wikipedia User:Imagefactory101 has uploaded (commons:Special:Contributions/Imagefactory101) several photos of individuals who all appear to be Harris Media clients while claiming to have taken all of the professional-looking photographs personally.

The user has also created a number of articles for Harris Media clients and made POV edits, for example here adding an assertion that a journalist critical of the candidate is a Communist (a claim also made in the candidate's campaign advertisements - From the Desk of Bill Binnie (campaign advertisement) published in the New Hampshire Sunday News on page A5 on 2010-08-18). In an apparent case of sockpuppetry, editing was coordinated with another account User:Yourenotsorry13.

Here an account User:Backcourt creates the article for the candidate Mike Montandon and then the same account creates the article for Gilbert Baker, and also edited articles such as those of Nicholas Van Campen Taylor and William Harrison Binnie.

List of suspected sockpuppets

Multi-article
Single article as of February 2011
Unlikely sockpuppets

Edits to the articles of client's opponents

Humorous, possibly intentional edits

  • User:69.15.200.122 edit to Edward Bernays: [7] (father of psychological propaganda, nephew of Sigmund Freud, responsible for much of the work to get the American public in favor of WWI and for much of the early work in corporate marketing in the 20th century)

Contact details

Harris Media 7035 Bee Cave Road
Austin, TX 78746
email: contact AT harrismediallc.com
Office: 512.739.5400
Cell: 703.321.6936
Fax: 512.476.5909
Web: http://www.harrismediallc.com/

References

  1. "Harris Media home page", accessed January 2011.
  2. "Vincent was one of those special young men in whom I see remarkable potential. Humble and polite to the point of being over the top, he was incredibly talented in understanding the power of the Internet and the potential of using a blog to create a daily log of activities and information and to build an online community." ~ An excerpt from Do the Right Thing (2008) by Gov. Mike Huckabee
  3. 3.0 3.1 Dara Kam, The Palm Beach Post, January 7th, 2011 "Gov's daughter goes to work for PR firm in Tallahassee‎" - http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/01/govs-daughter-goes-to-work-for-pr-firm-in-tallahassee/
  4. Kathleen Haughney, Candace Riley, WCTV, January 21st, 2011 "Scott Tweets His Way To Voters" - http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Govorner_Rick_Scott_Takes_to_Twitter_114334619.html
  5. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/dwh140 (who lists http://www.harrismediallc.com/ as his home page) as of January 2011.
  6. Patrick Brendel, American Independent News Network, "Major GOP donors backing Texas House Speaker Straus", 01.04.11, http://americanindependent.com/163917/major-gop-donors-backing-texas-house-speaker-straus
  7. Harris Media > Testimonials page January 2010: "Harris Media’s use of humorous web videos was effective at introducing my campaign to new audiences. At the end of the day, we finished ahead of the polls and I attribute this success in part to a comprehensive online strategy that involved the consistent use of online advertising, timely emails, and daily interactions with a large base of supporters on Facebook and Twitter." ~ Mike Montandon, Former Mayor of North Las Vegas, Nevada
  8. Harris Media > Testimonials page January 2010: "Bringing Vincent on board was more than just a shot in the arm – he transformed the way we campaigned on the web and helped us integrate our website into every aspect of our grassroots campaign. Over the course of our Primary and General election campaign we were able to grow our email list 6 fold from its start and Vincent wrote and sent regular email appeals to our growing list that raised us tens of thousands of dollars. We expanded our campaign efforts to include podcasting, web videos, an aggressive youth outreach via Facebook and MySpace, and Vince was able to get blog posts on policy written by Jeb posted on large National Republican blog sites which scored us a lot of earned media here in our state as all as encouraged more traffic to our website." ~ Periklis Karoutas, Campaign Manager, Jeb Bradley for Congress
  9. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/KeithFimian as of January 2011. Possible Harris Media Wikipedia account User:Imagefactory101 uploaded a photo and added it to the Wikipedia article, commons:File:Fimian.jpg.
  10. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/chris4mayor as of January 2011. Possible Harris Media Wikipedia account User:Imagefactory101 uploaded a photo and added it to the Wikipedia article, commons:File:Thieneman.jpg.
  11. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/dewhurst4texas as of January 2011.
  12. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/wilson4newyork as of January 2011.
  13. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/GilbertBaker as of January 2011.
  14. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/Simpson4Wyoming as of January 2011.
  15. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/BrianDubie as of January 2011.
  16. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/StanClark2009 as of January 2011.
  17. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/EarlSholley as of January 2011.
  18. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/Dana_Walsh as of January 2011.
  19. Possible Harris Media Wikipedia sockpuppet User:Imagefactory101 uploaded a photo and added it to the Wikipedia article, commons:File:Binnie.png.
  20. Harris media Twitter page http://twitter.com/HarrisMedia/ourteam/members follows http://twitter.com/bobmcdonnell as of January 2011.
  21. Sockpuppet User:Backcourt edited his article.
  22. Sockpuppet User:Backcourt edited his article.
  23. Sockpuppet User:Jonschr created a user page User:Jonschr/Tony Hartl.
  24. Sockpuppet User:98.201.172.251 edited article.
  25. Sockpuppet User:69.15.200.122 edited article, sockpuppet User:Ilovewiki2009 edited article.
  26. Sockpuppet User:Ilovewiki2009 edited article.
  27. Dara Kam, The Palm Beach Post, January 20th, 2011 - http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/01/flgovscott-town-hall-meeting-ends-on-sour-note/
  28. uploaded (commons:Special:Contributions/Imagefactory101) several photos of individuals who all appear to be Harris Media clients
  29. created Mike Montandon, Gilbert Baker articles, edited Nicholas Van Campen Taylor and William Harrison Binnie
  30. edited Bob McDonnell, David Dewhurst
  31. edited Bob McDonnell, Mike Montandon
  32. edited Nicholas Van Campen Taylor, Gilbert Baker, Mike Montandon
  33. edited Bob McDonnell, Mike Montandon, Keith Fimian

External links

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