Fair Media to auction execs for mentorship

The Fair Media Council of Bethpage, which promotes local news coverage, will be raffling off men at a June meeting.

Among them: Robert Catell, former KeySpan chief executive, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and John Kominicki, publisher of Long Island Business News in Ronkonkoma.

Now, before you women go crazy, realize that these guys and the others are being raffled off for entirely proper business reasons: They will provide one-hour mentoring sessions for the winners of a raffle that Fair Media will hold at a Women's Empowerment Summit at Briarcliffe College in Bethpage June 22.

Fair Media's executive director, Jaci Clement, said raffle tickets will sell for between $5 and $10. The summit will be a half-day event focusing on aspects of communication, including networking and personal branding.

So why not raffle off women?

"The complaints I hear from women are that they don't have access to the power base, which is men," Clement said. "This is an opportunity for women to sit down face-to-face [with male leaders] and have an informal talk."

Jed Morey, publisher of the Long Island Press, is among those to be auctioned. "It's for a great cause, but I'm praying my wife is in the audience" so she could win me, Morey said.

The names of all the men can be found on Fair Media's website, fairmediacouncil.org. There is a "wild card" described only as "an unnamed CEO from a major Long Island company." We tried, but Clement won't name him. (FYI: It's not The Scoop!)