Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"In a PR appeasement attempt, NYC & Company, the city's official tourism-marketing organization, has offered incentives to Republican National Convention protestors who will protest peacefully," writes PR Week. Participating restaurants, museums, hotels and shops called the "Peaceful Political Activists" campaign "a good business decision." United for Peace and Justice, which is seeking a protest permit for Central Park, called it a publicity stunt. The director of the business consortium Sensible Priorities, who developed the campaign, said, "I'm afraid this Central Park thing is really going to blow up." Across from the press conference announcing the campaign, "four members of Code Pink, a women's protest group, were arrested for trying to dangle a 40-foot-long banner from their ninth-floor [hotel] window."