Martha Stewart sets up Web site to tell her side of story

NEW YORK -- Martha Stewart thanked her admirers Monday for 40,000 e-mails of praise and support she says have flooded a Web site she set up to defend herself against stock fraud charges.

Image consultants say it's part of a shrewd campaign to win the battle for public opinion -- and influence potential jurors who may one day decide her guilt or innocence.

"This is brilliant," said Seth Siegel, co-founder of The Beanstalk Group, a trademark licensing agency. "She is shoring up her base, and simultaneously getting ready for a trial."

The site, marthatalks.com, went up just hours after Stewart was indicted last week on five federal charges related to her sale of ImClone Systems shares just before the stock plummeted on bad news from regulators. She has pleaded innocent.

In an open letter Thursday, Stewart said the Web site was being launched to reassure her supporters and post "current information about the case."

Stewart, who built a fortune by selling her vision of good taste and gracious living, said Monday the site has been swamped by more than 6 million visitors, and that she was "overwhelmed by the outpouring of support."

"I hope that those of you who have written will accept my heartfelt public thanks for your kind words and good wishes," she said.

The e-mails have been roughly 98 percent positive, Stewart spokeswoman Anna Cordasco said. Some of them were posted on the site.

"I am on your side," wrote Cynthia McKee of Lakewood, Calif. "Because of you I have organized all the warranties and manuals in my house. Because of you I have lovely dish soap in a cute bottle with a bar cap."

The Web site, designed in muted greens, features a photo of a smiling, jeans-clad Stewart with her two Chow Chow dogs.

To win public opinion, Stewart must search for a "middle ground" between hiding and being too visible, said James LaForce, president of LaForce & Stevens, a New York public relations agency.

The online medium and the controlled message are critical, said Eric Dezenhall, who runs a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm that specializes in damage control.

"She doesn't have a whole variety of options to make people who dislike her like her," he said. "What she can do is put a press on the Justice Department by having her supporters hammer the narrative that this is a witchhunt."

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On the Net:

Stewart site: http://www.marthatalks.com