Media Navel-Gazing By Mark Kollar

President-elect Barack Obama is forming his Cabinet, with the Treasury Secretary likely to be Timothy Geithner, the current New York Federal Reserve president; Citigroup is forming a sort of defense on how to save itself (sale or a merger most likely) after announcing massive layoffs earlier in the week; GM is forming its exit strategy, weighing bankruptcy and federal bailout options; and the Dow stood only in good form on Friday when it rallied on Geithner speculation but finished the week down 5.3%.

The speculation surrounding Geithner’s anointment has made for interesting reading this weekend. For example, Thomas Friedman in Sunday’s New York Times suggested that President Bush appoint him immediately to ease the transition, not a direct criticism on current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, but more of a direct call of urgency to address the economic crisis without a “transition” period.

Obama also laid out his “Economic Recovery Plan” over the weekend, not waiting for any transition period. In a four-minute YouTube and national radio address, the president-elect said he would create 2.5 million jobs within his first two years in office, with new jobs in building wind farms, solar panels, alternative-energy technology and good old-fashioned infrastructure projects like fixing roads and schools. No real specifics yet but all analysis over the weekend has compared his plans to the New Deal. And interesting and true to form from his campaign, he is using new media to deliver his message.

Abrams Forms a New New Media-Strategy Firm
The former head of MSNBC, Dan Abrams, announced last week that he was launching a media-strategy firm called Abrams Research to help businesses deal with public-relations challenges like reorganizations, M&A and attacks by negative bloggers. Sounds like a PR firm, right? The difference seems to be that Abrams, along with Huffington Post writer Rachel Sklar, has a roster of some 1,000 media experts to provide advice or strategies. Probably good news for the reporters who are losing jobs right now and those numbers of reporters are expected to climb significantly in the months ahead.