A Mea Culpa Cruises Through Cyberspace

With millions of sites floating through the blogosphere, who really has time to peek at even a fraction of them? Blogophile reads them for you and presents a weekly roundup of the buzz on must-read blogs. Blogophile appears new each Wednesday, and is written by CBSNews.com's Melissa P. McNamara.

The Mea Culpa Heard Around The World

Perhaps Paramount dropping Tom Cruise has had an impact on the movie star, after all. At least where apologies are concerned.

Brooke Shields says Cruise has apologized for publicly criticizing her use of antidepressants after suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her daughter in 2003.

"He came over to my house, and he gave me a heartfelt apology," Shields said Friday during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "And he apologized for bringing me into the whole thing and for everything that happened.

"And through it all, I was so impressed with how heartfelt it was. And I didn't feel at any time that I had to defend myself, nor did I feel that he was trying to convince me of anything other than the fact that he was deeply sorry. And I accepted it."

Brooke may have accepted it, but most bloggers weren't nearly as generous. Many said the apology was just Cruise's first step in a public relations campaign to restore his popularity.

"The rehabilitation begins," Starked writes. And PerezHilton adds, "and the damage control has begun."

"Tom Cruise's new agent must really be worth his/her weight in gold. How his new 'people' got him to eat crow, I'll never understand," Joan and Melissa blog. "I smell a wedding coming soon! A wedding will garner him just the amount of positive press he's been trying to grasp ..."

And bloggers who don't attribute the apology to a public relations stunt, suggest there may be another reason for the timing of Cruise's sentiments. "You don't suppose Tom's gal Katy is having some post-partum symptoms that is making him come to his senses, do you?," Kim Wood blogs at One Gal's Opinion.

But not everyone thinks Cruise's attempt to mend faces is merely a publicity stunt. "I found something humane and even moving in this news report: think what impressed me most is that Cruise mustered the gumption to be so sincere to her," Joshua Zader writes.

Apology or not, many simply take pleasure in watching the mighty fall. "The degeneration of Maverick has been one of the most entertaining ongoing stories in years. Care to join me in a nice, hot cup of schadenfreude?" Prescott at The Imperfect Parent blogs.

Good News Isn't Cheap

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract to scrutinize the U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. This includes monitoring Iraq coverage in major publications — like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times — for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations, according to the Washington Post.

This was a top story in the blogosphere this week. But if the Pentagon were monitoring blog-reaction, the report would be largely grim.
The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to the proposal.

But liberal blogger Steven Benen says he has many unanswered questions. "What, exactly, would Donald Rumsfeld do with this information? And why would it cost $20 million? And if the administration is so concerned about public perceptions regarding Iraq and the progress of the war, shouldn't officials start concentrating more on actually creating good news for the media to report?" he writes at The Carpetbagger Report.

Even some conservative bloggers were outraged by the military getting involved in public relations. "This is wrong on so many levels," Paul Bourgeois blogs at Startle Grams. "The job of the military is to kill the bad guys, not to worry about 'tone.' When they do, the war is over and we've already lost."

Others share the concern that putting a good spin on the war seems disingenuous. "It seems our government would prefer to censor the public with a positive spin rather than a more realistic look as to the realities of war," Bo writes at talldrinkawater. He foresees headlines that may soon read, 'War is Rosey: Sunnis and Shi'ites are Exchanging Hand Grenades for Flowers.' "

Some bloggers were put off by the high price tag of the potential contract. "I find it incredibly callous that veterans' benefits have been slashed in the past few years and likely will see more cuts with the budget this fall, and yet we have $20 million lying around for some PR firm to read a few newspapers?" Adam at The Blue Line blogs.

E-mail Becomes Inbox Hit

British Citigroup intern Lucy Gao has been the object of intense online ridicule because of an invitation she e-mailed 39 friends for a posh 21st birthday bash she threw herself at the Ritz Hotel in London.

The 350-word invitation set extremely rigid time slots for staggering arrival times, and referred partygoers to her "personal assistant" if they had trouble getting in. But her fashion instructions drew the most attention. "It goes without saying that the more upper-class you dress, the less likely you shall be denied entry," she wrote.

When an outraged colleague forwarded Gao's e-mail to others, it spiraled out of control. The e-mail soon reached thousands. Many British newspapers carried reaction to the e-mail, comments from friends and bloggers. Cafepress is even selling T-shirts with her photo and quotes printed on them, and one blogger started a responded at Citigroup to the forwarded Gao message.

As Democratic Trader describes it, "Unwittingly, perhaps fittingly, a London-based Citigroup intern named Lucy Gao wound up shining a flood light on her absurdly snotty and tightly regimented social universe by way of an email that seemingly hit every inbox in the securities industry over the past few days."

Some bloggers took notice of Gao's Oxford upbringing. "Somehow I knew I could count on Oxford to be on this like pretention on a 21-year-old intern," Raincoaster writes.

Some bloggers quick with the "send" button see Lucy's travails as a cautionary tale for our high-tech times. "As for the rest of us, we continue to laugh but silently pray that the next time we click the 'send' button, we don't end up in the 'Did you hear what happened to Lucy Gao' basket," a blogger at What Happened to Lucy Gao writes.

An Oxford University gossip Web site now posts photos from the infamous party and an e-mail allegedly from Gao, apologizing, and claiming it was an "internal joke" between friends. Gao also apparently sent an e-mail within Citigroup that reads: "I am sorry if you found the content of the invitation details offensive and I am glad to entertain. Please stop now."

Perhaps it's too late?

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By Melissa McNamara