Their flaws are everyone's business

In the broad taxonomy of poltroons, there is one category of fools I have always held above -- or below -- all others: big corporations and celebrities who blame their problems on the media.

Item: General Motors, ticked off by negative coverage, last week canceled its advertising in the Los Angeles Times. On the one hand, the decision, which may affect up to $20 million in ad spending, sends a powerful message to the Times. On the other hand, it sends a powerful message to the country about the idiots who are running GM.

If you read the business pages, you know that GM is a company in crisis. The stock is way down, following the company's admission that its 2005 earnings might fall 80 percent below previous forecasts. Last week the company's chairman and chief executive Richard Wagoner assumed the reins of GM's flagging North American division. His first visible move? Killing the LA Times ads, apparently because an auto columnist called for GM's top management to be ''impeached."

Well done, Mr. Wagoner! Southern California is the largest auto market in the country, and the LA Times is the largest newspaper there. Sure, there are other ways to sell cars -- you can give them away. Oops! GM has already tried that, offering rebates of up to $4,500. At least when sales continue to plummet, GM will know whom to blame -- the media, of course.

Item: Fidelity Investments plays this same game, with the same predictable results. In her 1995 book, ''Fidelity's World," Diana Henriques reports on the remarkable juxtaposition of hard-hitting New York Times articles about Fidelity and the subsequently canceled advertisements. In 1999, Brill's Content magazine reported that Fido had on occasion pulled ads from the Times, the Globe, and Fortune magazine, in response to critical coverage. (A Fidelity spokeswoman said yesterday, ''I'm not going to get into a discussion of why we advertise in one outlet or another.")

The previous year, Fidelity's PR boss said he ''would not assist" two Globe columnists -- Steve Bailey and Steven Syre -- in the development of any future columns after they disrespected a Fido fund manager. Now everyone is speaking again. Isn't that nice?

Last month, Syre reported that Fidelity -- once the largest mutual fund company in the country -- had slipped from second to third place among investment companies, measured by the money they manage in long-term funds. Allow me to state the obvious: Fidelity is fast becoming the General Motors of the mutual fund business.

Item: The odious Jack Welch is practically drowning in free publicity for his latest ''book," ''Winning," coauthored with his wife, Suzy. (''Whose beauty, brilliance, and goodness make every day perfect for me," Jack wrote in his previous gag-inducing outing, ''Jack: Straight From the Gut.") No sentient person would read this trash, but someone paid me to read ''Gut," which contained this gem: ''In the post-Enron world, the media immediately dove into the fray, and some documents ended up being portrayed as something they decidedly were not -- 'revelations' about my so-called retirement package."

Welch is complaining about the coverage of his Falstaffian retirement deal with his former employer, General Electric. In the fall of 2002, The Wall Street Journal noted that Welch was receiving -- in addition to a huge pension -- free use of an airplane, a Manhattan apartment, country-club fees, and the like. Shortly thereafter, the Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission had taken an interest in Jack's perks. Welch spontaneously declared that he would forgo between $2 million and $2.5 million worth of the bennies.

In an op-ed article in the Journal, Welch complained that his Brobdingnagian deal had been ''misportrayed as an excessive retirement package, rather than what it is -- part of a fair employment and post-employment contract made six years ago." (''What? No grape peelers?" was the Journal's bemused comment on the retirement deal.) With tortured logic, he asserted that he was as clean as a whistle but had decided not to avail himself of the free airplane, free apartment, etc.

Doggone media! Doggone kid lawyers at the SEC! Doesn't anyone respect corporate titans any more?

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.