04-25-2009/04-29-2009 THOMAS STAYS ON FIRST FAMILY CHURCH'S CASE Here's betting that every time the Kansas City Star begins laying off journalists that members of the First Family Church are praying hard that investigative reporter Judy Thomas's name will be on the list. So far their prayers have not been answered. Thomas has been doing an ongoing award-winning investigation of the Overland Park mega-church run by the Jerry Johnston and his family that has questioned its financial practices and other aspects of the ministry. Her stories have resulted in the church being investigated by the Kansas Attorney General and the Internal Revenue Service. Thomas's stories have forced First Family to retain a New York public relations firm---5W---to handle its image problem. In her latest story in the Star (4/25) Thomas points out the PR firm is being paid $10,000 a month to try and do damage control for the church's image. Ironically, while 5W tries to massage the church's image, it also is working with the founder of the porn video empire "Girls Gone Wild" on his image. The First Family controversy has resulted in the single largest discussion thread in the history of the KCTalk discussion board. Since March 2007 there have been more than 9,000 individual postings on the site (LINK) with many of them current and former members of the church. Nearly 700,000 people have viewed the KCTalk discussion.
Copyright 2008/2009 Bottom Line Communications. BLC is a Web News Site that analyzes media and marketing issues. Please give credit or link to www.bottomlinecom.com when using any materials. Click on the FEEDBACK tab to send any media tips/comments/thoughts/ to us. We honor off-the-record requests and will correct/clarify any information found not to be 100% accurate.
