UnhappyFranchisee.com asks: ‘Tulsa World: Intentionally Deceptive or Exceedingly Lazy?’

Well, THAT would depend greatly upon whose opinion one asks, apparently; most Tulsans would say both, which is the same conclusion UnhappyFranchisee.com [UF.C] reveals in its devastating research into Beautiful Brands International. This is a great piece of independent reporting by the brave bloggers over at UF.C, building a case for journalistic malpractice that spans nigh on a decade. Striking hard early with a mountain of documentation, UF.C ends his examination by brutally wondering why Laurie Winslow or John Stancavage’s heads are not rolling over thar at the World. UF.C catches them copy-pasting TYPOS from press releases, for crying out loud!

Ultimately, the question is asked: ‘Does Tulsa World and parent World Publishing, Inc. care that its publication is being used as a press release mill and propaganda pipeline by questionable companies, or is that practice in accordance with the World Publishing Code of Ethics?’ Inasmuch as the Tulsa World used its own paper to lobby for a private airline of which it was the primary stakeholder (Great Plains Airlines), ultimately leaving the City of Tulsa in $7,000,000 in debt to the private bank of its richest citizen, the Tulsa World really has no ethics, really, does it?

Given David Rutkauskas’ age, he is undoubtedly part of the Old School network of corrupt insiders and their ilk, with the bloggers at the shat-end of the decision-making tree, merely going through the motions. Tulsa is lousy with clubs and cliques, and the World has -given the Great Plains debacle – forever ruined any pretense of journalism. In fact, the entirety of Tulsa media are one great big public relations arm for the police state, the socialists at the Chamber, and the fraternal cliques that run this town. Thank you, UF.C, for helping expose one single, glaring example of how Tulsa runs.

Tulsa World Perpetuating the Beautiful Brands Success Myth Since 2003: Intentionally deceptive, exceedingly lazy, or both?

Tulsa World, it seems to us, routinely publishes company-submitted press release content as its own, original content. In our opinion, Tulsa World not only fails to fact-check, proofread or verify the accuracy of the press release content it publishes, its staff continues to reprint the same false and deceptive statements even after they have been provided with proof of their inaccuracy. In the opinion of UnhappyFranchisee.Com, Tulsa World just doesn’t seem to care about journalistic ethics nor providing its reader with accurate information. We’re not sure whether Tulsa World and its business editor, John Stancavage, are intentionally deceptive, exceedingly lazy, or both.

In a November 25, 2012 column supposedly written by World Staff Writer Laurie Winslow, Tulsa World credited Beautiful Brands International with developing and successfully launching a list of “worldwide, franchised brands” that included Camille’s Sidewalk Café, Rex’s Chicken, Ludger’s Bavarian Cakery, Roxberry Juice Co., Smallcakes A Cupcakery, MyCamille’s and Hard Knox Pizzeria.
On December 12, 2012, UnhappyFranchisee.Com wrote to both writer Laurie Winslow and Tulsa World Business Editor John Stancavage to inform them that these are in no way “worldwide, franchised brands.”

In fact, Ludger’s Bavarian Cakery and Hard Knox Pizzeria are single-unit shops with no franchises. Rex’s Chicken has 2 locations. Roxberry Juice Co. and Smallcakes A Cupcakery each have 8 domestic locations. MyCamille’s is not even a business; It appears to be the name of the Camille’s Café franchisee intranet. And Camille’s Sidewalk Café, long touted as a success story by Tulsa World, is down to 32 domestic locations, having closed more than 70 franchises in recent years.

(In 2003, Tulsa World stated that BBI’s founders are “focused on opening more than 600 [Camille’s] franchises coast to coast by the end of 2004” and that they “have 135 franchises in different stages of development.” As far as we can tell, the founders opened no more than about 106 Camille’s franchises and most of them have failed.) Despite this correction, on December 16, 2012, Tulsa World again published a BBI press release as original content, including BBI’s list of “worldwide, franchised brands” that included Camille’s Sidewalk Café, Rex’s Chicken, Ludger’s Bavarian Cakery, Roxberry Juice Co., Smallcakes A Cupcakery, MyCamille’s and Hard Knox Pizzeria.

This time they added a new “worldwide, franchised brand” to the list: NYPD Pizzeria. Tulsa World failed to mention that NYPD Pizzeria is not worldwide (it does not have a single international location), was founded by a convicted con-artist now serving time in Federal prison, or that the NYPD Pizzeria has closed 60% of its locations in recent years.

The Case for “Intentionally Deceptive”
On November 18, 2012, staff writer Laurie Winslow wrote the headline “BBI to franchise coffee and tea concept at Camille’s.”

Ms. Winslow seemed to be bending over backward to give the impression that BBI is now franchising the international Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf concept. The truth is that a single, local Camille’s location is brewing Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf coffee (through a Keurig system, according to one source) and maybe retailing a few Coffee Bean branded products as a test. BBI is clearly not “franchising” the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf “concept” as Ms. Winslow states. Could such an obvious deception not be intentional?

The Case for “Exceedingly Lazy”
Tulsa World, it seems, even plagiarizes typographical errors.

In its December 16, 2012 “FYI Business” section under the headline “FreshBerry expands in Middle East, Venezuela,” Tulsa World staff supposedly wrote “Rutkauskas said he hopes to continue the incredible growth of the FreshBerry brand with eight more stores openings…” [sic Emphasis ours] 16 days earlier, on November 30, 2012, QSR magazine published the same text in its story: “Rutkauskas said he hopes to continue the incredible growth of the FreshBerry brand with eight more stores openings…” [sic Emphasis ours] Even the typo “eight more stores openings” was apparently plagiarized from a BBI press release without attribution. So not only does it appear that Tulsa World is too lazy to do its own writing, but it’s too lazy to proofread as well.

Should Tulsa World Fire Laurie Winslow? John Stancavage?
On July 12, 2011, The Kansas City (Mo.) Star fired its longtime metro columnist, Steve Penn, for doing what it appears Tulsa World’s Laurie Winslow is doing on a regular basis: publishing press releases verbatim in a bylined column. According to Allan Wolper, a professor of journalism at Rutgers University, “last July, Penn fired back, filing his suit against the Star and corporate owner, McClatchy Newspapers, Inc., alleging his editors knew all about his pilfering and that plagiarizing press releases was common practice at the paper.”

The Kansas City (Mo.) Star adamantly denies Penn’s claim. Such an admission would damage the reputation and call into question the integrity of the newspaper. In a recent article entitled Ethics Corner: The News Hole Is No Place For PR Copy, Professor Wolper wrote:
“Lifting press releases verbatim and publishing them without attribution is a sin against readers. It is a violation of the public trust that media love to talk about. It gives the impression that the paper is not an independent voice. It calls into question every other story in the paper.”

It appears undeniable that Tulsa World writers and editors are publishing the press releases of BBI (Beautiful Brands International) verbatim. If you Google a quote or key phrase from the stories linked to above, you will likely see up to a dozen websites (like Yahoo News, QSR, Fast Casual) that have published the same story, using the same text, same executive quotes, same unverified sales figures, etc. as Tulsa World.

The question is: Does Tulsa World and parent World Publishing, Inc. care that its publication is being used as a press release mill and propaganda pipeline by questionable companies, or is that practice in accordance with the World Publishing Code of Ethics?

The answer is, once again, no, because, in our opinion, they have no ethical core. Anything scribbled on a sheet of toilet paper by a monkey in a zoo will have more journalistic ethics than the Tulsa World, or for any one in the Tulsa media, for that matter.