Sometimes, a brand can get hit with a controversy that they didn’t even know they were involved with. Surely, that must be what Whole Foods is thinking.

Usually involved with issues surrounding food and the prices at their shops, it’s likely they didn’t have a crisis plan in place for the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, which made it OK for employers to determine whether or not to offer contraception coverage. The company itself has no plans of discontinuing the coverage. However, one of the brands they carry, Eden Foods, is trying to opt out of the coverage. And now there’s a petition against Whole Foods with 12,500 names, demanding that they stop selling Eden Foods products. According to The Daily Beast, the company is one of 82 trying to discontinue the coverage.

“While individual-level boycotting of Eden Foods may not have much of an impact, telling Whole Foods to stop carrying Eden Foods’ products in their stores around the nation should have a much bigger effect. Let’s seek out the best messenger to send this message to Eden Foods- and in this case, Whole Foods seems like the perfect fit,” reads the petition.

We can all just imagine the looks on faces of the Whole Foods publicists when they saw this.

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In its continuing coverage of the ladies, Fox News‘ Jesse Watters has discovered a new political demographic. They are the Beyonce Voters, and these “Single Ladies” (get it?) are all up in arms about the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, not because they are concerned with women’s health. No. It’s because “[t]hey depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands.” That’s a direct quote; words that came out of this man’s mouth on national television as he sat on a couch surrounded by women who giggled nervously when he vomited this out of his mouth.

“They need contraception, health care and they love to talk about equal pay, ” he continued.

It should be noted that Watters later defended these remarks after he came under fire, saying that single women depend on government assistance more than other groups and Hillary Clinton needs to fire up these women so they’ll vote for her if she runs for president. Moreover, while talking to Bill O’Reilly, they both expressed the opinion that the backlash to this BS is because Beyonce’s name is involved. For Watters, it’s just one huge lump of fail.

But smart women never miss a chance to show how fabulously clever they are. So we have the Beyonce Voters Tumblr. And it is great.

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LeBron James’ return: Saturday’s front page of The Plain Dealer pic.twitter.com/h8KFb6UAPX

— clevelanddotcom (@clevelanddotcom) July 11, 2014

Oh hey, Internet. Are you done reading LeBron’s press release/Sports Illustrated guest column/personal “let’s get back together” letter to Cleveland yet?

We will fully admit to our own general ignorance of sports right now, but from a PR perspective the dude does have a way of making the world hold its breath while he manages the message, doesn’t he?

Now let’s see how the web responded.

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If you work with new business pitches for any amount of time, you will see one of the hidden mysteries of PR pitching unfold in a matter of minutes: how an agency transforms from a vendor to a “trusted partner.”

This is the magical moment when PR agencies are no longer looked at as “hired guns,” but rather “extensions of the marketing team to help reach a common goal.” This is when value of opinion becomes a thing. This is when execution of big ideas become a thing. And this is when your retainer is no longer “a thing.”

Shouldn’t the same happen for clients from the agency perspective? And if so (and it really should, in case you’re wondering), when is that moment?

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Here’s a quick take on news you may have missed: the country of Ecuador has a whole lot of money to spend on reputation management.

$6.4 million over 12 months, to be exact.

Documents released by the Justice Department yesterday confirmed that New York’s mcSQUARED and Washington’s Fitzgibbon Media have been partnering on lobbying work for the country since late 2013. This announcement came a couple of weeks after the conservative Washington Free Beacon effectively accused mcSQUARED of ethics violations for listing the country as a client while failing to disclose the nature of the contract to the U.S. government.

Like so many conflicts around the world, this one is all about oil.

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Something that has plagued reporters of any ilk for years is the dreaded retweet button.

Although they work for a particular network (local or national), they have personal accounts … and opinions. Thanks to becoming the personification of the TV network, the disclaimer “Retweets are not endorsements” appears throughout Twitter bios everywhere.

But does that even matter? Are retweets endorsements or just sharing opinion?

Twitter has created a subculture and an unspoken set of rules that reflects retweets as implied endorsements. You share with your followers and that means it becomes your opinion. To be retweeted means someone else likes your tweet because you shared good information. And that they agree with it, most of the time.

So, NPR has stepped in and said what most of us already think…sorta.

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MWW promoted Jennifer Little to the role of SVP/general manager of its Dallas office. Little joined MWW in 2012 after serving in VP/SVP roles at Ketchum and Edelman; she also worked as director of PR for Pizza Hut for nearly three years. The promotion follows MWW’s expansion into a new office space, and President/CEO Michael Kempner writes, “Over the past two years, Jennifer has played an important role in driving the growth of our Dallas office and she is the ideal person to help continue its expansion.” Little earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast news from the University of Texas, Austin, and a graduate degree in communication studies from Indiana State University. (Release)

Los Angeles firm Murphy O’Brien announced six new promotions led by the appointment of Laura Millett and Rachel Esserman to the position of vice president. Millet, who has a background in broadcast journalism, joined Murphy O’Brien after working on PR campaigns for travel clients at the The Zimmerman Agency (Omnicom); in her new role she will oversee multiple travel accounts while developing new business, working on strategy and driving branding efforts and awards initiatives. Esserman, a long-standing Murphy O’Brien employee, will also contribute to strategy while spearheading new business outreach and securing media placements for travel and real estate clients. The firm also promoted Ashley King to account director, Jen DeAngelis to digital media senior account executive, Kaitlin Novell to senior account executive and Marissa Girolamo to account executive.

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Recently, Illinois State University created “Gender-Neutral Restrooms” to help serve the LGBT community. A nice move by the institution to be more accommodating; however, FOX News took a little umbrage with this.

Essentially, the re-labeling would change several of its single-stall “family” restrooms on campus as “all-gender” restrooms. No new toilets. No new seating. Just the sign, which takes a while to get used to viewing. Here’s the initial report of the news…and then the unfortunate #PRFail follow-up after the jump.

(NOTE: FOX News anchor Heather Nauert incorrectly says the university is Indiana State.)

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