Competitive landscapes can bring out the best and worst in people. The U.S. economy is built on this simple market system – the person who tells others best about being the best, will be the best.

That’s the thing, you don’t even have to be the best. You just have to be better than the other guy at telling the story. It’s the art of patting yourself on the back.

The "Today" show on NBC is feeling the pain right now for forgetting the art of self-promotion. When ratings started to struggle, the peacock network made the decision to let newscaster Ann Curry go.  In the handling of the transition, host Matt Lauer has taken the brunt of the decision, whether or not he had any direct interaction in the staffing move.

"It was a hard time for everybody," Lauer told The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz. "We were getting kicked around a lot. Some of it was self-inflicted and perhaps deserved."

Since the transition, the once powerhouse morning program has been second in the ratings to ABC’s "Good Morning America."

"I don’t think the show and the network handled the transition well. You don’t have to be Einstein to know that," Lauer said. "It clearly did not help us. We were seen as a family, and we didn’t handle a family matter well."

That was a wonderful understatement. For years the show portrayed a family that covered news and human interest stories. Then, when there’s a spat between family members, people tend to take sides.

The same can hold true for local TV stations. There’s an art to how the anchors are positioned, how the delivery and tone of a show is produced. Loyal audiences are developed and counted upon for continued ratings and advertising dollars.

Recently, WISN-TV Ch. 12 sent out a release stating it has once again won WeatherRate’s seal of being the most accurate weather forecasters in the market. WeatherRate works much like Angie’s List does for local contractors. The firm (or station in this case) is legitimately studied, measured and assessed. Then, for a fee, they can use the seal from the organization in their promotions and advertisements.

Stations in some markets win the honor from WeatherRate and then decide not to advertise the fact and save the money that WeatherRate would charge them. The model has been in effect for eons, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or the Better Business Bureau ratings continue to this day.

Other promotions carry over on other media, just as WDJT-TV Ch. 58’s former "Just Ten Minutes" jingle that you’d hear on radio spots. Often, dedicated staffers at each station are there to produce commercial spots and promotions for news and other programming on air and online.

As competitive of a landscape as the Milwaukee market provides – meaning that people often sample other TV and radio stations while they hold on to their favorites – it is important for the media outlets to be experts at telling its own story.

COMICS: The same company that produced the latest Nicki Minaj comic book, has just released "Paul McCartney: Carry that Weight." This latest effort from Bluewater Productions covers the decision by the former Beatle to leave his bandmates and strike out on his own.

Bluewater already released graphic novels on the Beatles.  "The Beatle Experience," a 270-page graphic novel, and "Orbit: John Lennon," a 32-page comic book, are both available on Amazon as well as Nook, Kindle and iTunes.

You can find the McCartney comic online here.