Scores of Journalists Killed in Shark Week Promotion

It's a tough time for those in the media right now. Publications are folding, jobs are scarce, audiences are harder to reach than ever, and sharks are devouring us off the coast of Australia. Or some of us, anyway, including one TV reporter who found bloody swim trunks and his own carefully researched obituary in a sobering package sent to his office.

As it turned out, it was just the Discovery Channel alerting The Hollywood Reporter (among numerous others) to its upcoming Shark Week. "It's as if the network hired David Fincher to do their PR," writes THR's James Hibberd, who attributed the "creepiest network marketing effort ever" to the network while also linking to the next phase of the campaign -- a Web site where you yourself can enjoy the first-person experience of being eaten alive. "I have to wonder if some recipients of this package might be offended," he adds, as if it could be any worse than that time TLC sent along a box of orphans and a live shrew to give select press that first-hand suffocation feeling of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. You got off easy, pal.

· Creepiest network marketing effort ever? [The Live Feed]