Boystown Media Inc,/WEHOville is a West Hollywood based corporation with a West Hollywood business license and pays West Hollywood taxes WEHO PRIDE ads were placed in three Los Angeles based media outlets, without a West Hollywood business license or that do not pay West Hollywood taxes. The bias at West Hollywood City Hall is clear. We approached Acting Communications director Joshua Schare to ask how he decides which media outlets to support.
What do you base your advertising decisions on?
The City’s Communications Department oversees the City’s communications work. This is guided by priorities directed by the City Council and by workplans in City Departments and Divisions. Generally, the City concentrates its communications efforts on media relations, extensive social media, a comprehensive website, and digital access to information and to public meetings. We enhance this with video, public service announcements (PSAs), a digital events and meetings calendar, and more. Our focus is to produce and distribute more than 250 news releases per year in an effort to distill and support clear information about City events, policy work, programs, and services, and we disseminate this information to reporters and community members. The City makes decisions about advertising on a case-by-case basis and determinations about advertising are made at the Division level throughout the City, based on coordinated media and outreach efforts. The City’s Communications Department occasionally places paid advertising and the City Clerk’s office, additionally, places ads for public notices in accordance with requirements as determined by law. The City and its Communications Department have limited advertising budgets and the City often uses public service announcement space provided in digital transit shelters, on street banners, and in kiosks and City facilities.
Is the target market for WEHO Pride, West Hollywood or Los Angeles residents?
Our efforts for WeHo Pride have a local, regional, national, and global reach and we’re fielding inquiries from just about everywhere. The City’s Communications Department is supporting a variety of public relations, communications, and marketing efforts to raise awareness for WeHo Pride in West Hollywood, in Los Angeles, and beyond the region.
If you should become the permanent Communications Director will your policy continue to exclude West Hollywood based media organizations such as WEHOville?
There is no such policy to exclude West Hollywood based media organizations. The City’s Communications Department embraces a mission to continually establish greater public awareness and boost public participation in the City. We identify and use communications channels that foster awareness, increase understanding, and build support for City goals, projects, and initiatives while reflecting community concerns and supporting community values. On a personal note, I am deeply committed to a transparent and consistent dialogue between the City and the community, and to increased capacity to bring diverse perspectives together, allowing the City to maintain responsiveness, build trust, reduce the potential for conflict, and provide for better-supported and sustainable solutions and greater civic satisfaction.
Publishers Note: WEHOville and the city communications department have worked closely for over a year to bring you the most updated city news, press releases and surveys. The City’s public information office is supposed to be fair and unbiased. Media equity and free speech are dead in West Hollywood.
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Larry only posts comments that support his side but whines about “equity” lol. Nothing but an online blog bully.
This is what $200K/year gets us.
!it’s not easy to tell who is in charge of these decisions but it is the obligation of the city employee to give clear answers and this is not that.
I loved his b/s. Weasel.
So this Joshua guy replaced the
totally incompetent PR woman that was there for 11 years. After she got the job through the woman who was the city council person and her name sounds like some street or cul-de-sac. You can make this stuff up. What is the advertising budget that’s been wasted on the publications that have no relevance? Did Horvath and Ericson get a kick back? We know they did with the fake news publicity.
Mr. Schare’s media policy is one thing but most notable, he is not exactly a capable communicator albeit with the Communications Dept in Weho since 2013. According to this article and the attached Linkedin profile, one can easily see the dissipated communications strategy.
In terms of communications, having worked at the top of the field, is Communication….simply and straightforward being the most effective.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaschare/
He’s recently arrived but has that City Hall “Word Salad” down. Tangentially, that was especially revealing last night during staff report presentation on 3-A then the mix during council member questions (where some postured to cover their ignorance of planning related issues) and then the director cut into staff explanations to produce what. A Giant Word Salad resolution that went to a vote. Guaranteed 4/5 didn’t know what the proper description was and even Mayor Meister, the most closely attuned was probably scratching her head. The result? Genuflecting to Sacramento instead of growing a backbone and advocating for West Hollywood.… Read more »
“committed to a transparent and consistent dialogue between the City and the community”……But they wont advertise in the only West Hollywood based business that provides city public service information and “diverse perspectives” the public…..I don’t get it.
Also, the city manager was asked a very direct question last night, but there was no answer.
Now do Greeneyedguy!
The same Joshua who jumps into every comment thread to defend Erickson and the city council?
I do not defend Erickson and the CC in *every* comment.
Greeneyedguy is a different person.
You people have something negative to say about *EVERYTHING*. It gets truly boring – and annoying.
You people? You sound like a corrupt city employee.