Behan Requests Retraction

A message from Mark Behan of Behan Communications:
Hi, Matt: I enjoy your blog, but you're wrong about our work on the Bud Taylor brochure. Our folks wrote the copy and designed the piece in conjunction with Bud Taylor's team. They did not copy the brochure from a web site or any other source nor base it on a template. It's a simple, straight-forward piece that sets forth clearly what the voters should know about Bud Taylor. Another campaign decided to flatter us by copying the design and much of the content. I trust you'll retract your false statement.
Regards, Mark Behan

* my response *
Dear Mark,
My regards to your family. I am very surprised to hear that you are familiar with my blog. How did you first hear about it, if you don't mind my asking? Its always good to know who's out there promoting it. I like to give thanks where it is due. Please let me know. My blog is simply a place for me to vent about the substandard quality of the Post-Star. It is an archive of letters, more than anything else. It may be accessible by the public, but I honestly have done nothing to promote it, at all. In other words, it is not well-read or well-trafficked. In it, you'll have noticed that I focus primarily on issues the Post-Star is NOT covering (or, in other cases, just how badly they cover the issues they do see as important). In other words, like a letter to the editor, the blog primarily uses the Post-Star as its source (or its source of frustration). As such, if you read the Post-Star article on the "brochure plagiarism", as I did, looking for information about who is really responsible, they totally let the guilty party off the hook. They did very little follow-up. That, along with the waste of valuable space spent on substantive issues, and the further "McTaylorizing" of their audience angers me. As someone involved, I imagine that it angered you, too. Bud's message is lost in such trifling and he is done a great disservice when they cover him without covering his issues and his wonderful vision for "teamglensfalls". Peter McDevitt is a friend of mine but let me make this perfectly clear, if Peter or one of his more hapless subordinates did copy your brochure design, as you maintain, then the Post-Star should have figured this all out BEFORE they wasted valuable space in my Sunday paper on this "issue". That space would have been much better served by giving voice to parties other than just the one that Jim Marshall and Ken Tingley and Michael O'Connor belong to. Some reasonable amount of space should be devoted to the candidates that the huge majority of Glens Falls residents might actually vote for (61% of them are not enrolled Republican). You'd think the Post-Star would, at least, TRY to project an air of neutrality, wouldn't ya? (Its a rhetorical question.) ;-) I do apologize for "throwing you in" by daring to suggest that a template for the brochure might have come from a website or a cd or some other external source rather than from one of the creative minds at Behan Communications. I thought that possible because, the day of the article, I went online and looked at various "Running for Office" websites. One of many that I looked at had a template very similar, if not identical, to the one shown in the paper. When I wrote my blog later that day, I couldn't find the exact site, and so, I merely opined that this was what had happened (as opposed to posting the web address for all to see). I didn;t really have time to do the surfing to find it again (too many balls in the air, Mark). When I do have time to look again, I'll send you the address. That said, I would be happy (with your permission of course) to post your email to my blog. I would also be happy to print anything else you wish to write or post, anytime. Can I assume that that is all right?