'Mad Men' Got Ad Age All Wrong, Says Exec
Don Draper may be be the big man on campus at Sterling Cooper, but he and his 'Mad Men' crew are coming under fire -- first from from veteran ad executive George Lois, and now from Ad Age editor-in-chief Rance Crain.In a Monday editorial, Crain criticizes the show for its handling of a cameo from a faux-Ad Age reporter on Sunday's show. In the premiere, which aired July 25, Draper (Jon Hamm) is lunching with a reporter from the publication who asks, "Who is Don Draper?" Ruffled, the handsome exec asks how other people have answered the same question. "They say something cute," the reporter says. "One creative director said [you're] a lion tamer." The reporter is taking notes in shorthand, and tells Draper that his picture "may be bigger than the article."
For most fans of 'Mad Men,' which began its fourth season last night, the scene might be innocuous enough. But for Crain, who worked for Ad Age in the 1960s, there were problems galore. Asking, "What's wrong with this picture?," Crain enumerate his quibbles, which include: "No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn't take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn't ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories."
Lunches seem to the biggest faux pas for Crain, who explains, "we did a lot of lunches, but they were of the relationship-building kind, where we'd try to get in good with our sources."
While Crain is busy setting the record straight with real-life stories from the field, Draper and co. will likely be moving on to the next business lunch, complete with a cold martini.

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