For the Birds: Reston Town Center PR Stunt Backfires Badly, Creates Fleeting Moment of Schadenfreude-Fueled Glee

What's new at our favorite elite, parking-challenged ersatz downtown, besides some additional empty storefronts? (Secret's out!) If our sponsored content reading skills are up to snuff, apparently two peregrine falcons have come to call Reston Town Center home, and now the elite crisis managers, aware of an extremely rare good PR opportunity when they see it, are earning their retainers by proposing a naming contest for them!

Give us some good (presumably) sponsored content, BFFs at Reston Now:

A joint effort between Reston Now and Boston Properties wants readers’ help naming the two falcons, who call Reston Town Center home.

The story of Reston Town Center’s peregrine falcons started in June 2015 when two chicks were found on Market Street.

What follows is a lengthy story, complete with "peregrine falcon fun facts," that we all can enjoy in our spare time not shopping at RTC. And at the end is this gem:

Between and next Friday (April 19), comment below this story and on the Reston Now social media pages (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) your name suggestions. On Monday, April 22, readers will be able to vote for the two names out a list of the most upvoted and liked suggested names.

As you, but presumably not the elite crisis managers whose hourly rate is in the three figures, might imagine, the responses haven't been exactly what they hoped for: (click to enlarge)

We, too, wondered how Reston Now got talked into this PR stunt, but then we remembered that they accepted a paid op-ed from RTC -- and barred comments -- when paid parking first reared its ugly head. And then we remembered that our own filthy "web log" relies on people accidentally clicking on the "Who's Your Baby's Daddy" ads to stay whole and sadness ensued, the end.