Vision Media's Attempt To Silence Critic May Be Exposing More Questionable Activities

from the welcome-to-modern-media dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a company called Vision Media TV that was suing the operator of 800Notes.com, a site where users had complained about Vision Media. Vision Media, of course, has been criticized in the NY Times and other media publications for cold calling organizations, promising to put them on "public television," but not making it clear that all it seemed to do was send the program it would put together (after the organization paid somewhere around $20,000) to various public television stations, with no promise that it would get on TV. Vision Media has been aggressive in trying to quiet any criticism, but with this latest lawsuit, not only is it getting some pushback, but others may be digging up some additional dirt on the company.

Paul Alan Levy, who is representing 800Notes, alerts us to the news that all of this attention has helped dig up other reports about the company, including the fact that similarly questionable pitches have come from other companies with different names (WJMK, United Media, Vision Media and Great America HD)... but the very same address as Vision Media. Rather than Hugh Downs, those other pitches involved media personalities like Walter Cronkite and Mike Douglas -- both of whom ended up suing the company over being misled. This reminds me that we received a similar pitch ourselves a year or so ago, but I have no idea if it was from the same company (and tragically, I can't find that voicemail any more).

Of course, none of this would be getting as much attention if the company wasn't trying to silence 800Notes and its users from saying why they felt the pitches were questionable.

Filed Under: cold calling, criticism, hugh downs, streisand effect
Companies: 800notes, great america hd, united media, vision media tv, wjmk