Did Forbes cite Carone as "one of the foremost experts on business negotiating strategy" in the country? Well, his business partner did, as dubious "contributor."

According to a 12/30/21 post on Scheps' Politics NY regarding Frank Carone, Mayor Eric Adams's incoming chief of staff, "Forbes once cited him as 'one of the foremost experts on business negotiating strategy' in the country."

Oh, really? 

Keep in mind, as Joshua Benton recently wrote in Neiman Lab, "Forbes became known as the best way to disguise PR as news."

Well, search Forbes and you can find a 10/16/18 post from former contributor Russ Alan Prince--who "consult[s] with family offices, the ultra-wealthy and select professionals"--headlined For Great Business Negotiators It Is All About Results, Not Ego:

According to Frank Carone, executive partner at Abrams, Fensterman and one of the foremost experts on business negotiating strategy, “Great business negotiators often go unnoticed. At the very least, they’re not pushing others out of the way to be in the spotlight. For them it’s not about taking victory laps or about the glory and adulation. No, for great negotiators it’s all about getting results that make a significant difference.”

Sure, except for calling opposing counsel a "fucking liar."

Another search leads to a friendly 11/1/21 interview by Prince, Negotiating The Impossible with Frank V. Carone, in Prince's Financial Advisor magazine.

At the end of the article is this message, "For a complimentary PDF copy of Elite Wealth Planning: Lessons from the Super Rich request the book fromprinceasoc@protonmail.com."

Well, um, Prince and Carone are co-authors of the book.

Leveraging Forbes

Let's recap. Carone wasn't cited by Forbes--by any of its professional journalists----"as 'one of the foremost experts on business negotiating strategy' in the country."

Rather, Carone was cited in Forbes by his business partner.

Nice work if you can get it. And for a while, well, a lot of people could, as part of an ethically dubious, unvetted "contributor" program (which generated Forbes fees). 

As Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton wrote in his 2/9/22 history of the program, An incomplete history of Forbes.com as a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism, triggered by the arrest of a Forbes contributor for bitcoin laundering:

But this is only the latest in a series of bonkers abuses of its “contributor” system. Actually, check that: These are less abuses than straight-up uses, because they’re baked into the very premise of letting anyone take your brand equity out for a spin.

...And their work was published completely unedited — unless a piece went viral, in which case a web producer might “check it more carefully.”

All of that meant that Forbes suddenly became the easiest way for a marketer to get their message onto a brand-name site.
As Josh Bernoff wrote 2/15/18, Forbes will now pay all contributors. Will that improve “quality?”:

A bit of background: Just about anyone could get to be a Forbes contributor. Forbes never edits those contributor posts...When you read a post on a site that says “Forbes” at the top, you expect the level of integrity that a traditional magazine creates, but when you read a post that says “Contributor,” that’s not what you’re getting. You have to pay close attention to notice the difference between articles by actual Forbes reporters and from contributors.