Monday Morning Media Quarterback

No.  As professor and writer Samantha Powers found out last week, you can’t do it.  There is no off the record.

Powers, an adviser to Barack Obama, was quoted in The Scotsman as saying of the Hilary Clinton campaign “They’re obsessed…she’s a monster..and that’s off the record.”  That late defense didn’t work; she ended up resigning from the campaign and apologizing.  Her unfortunate but newsworthy comment also overwhelmed Powers’ actual agenda–to use the press to promote her new .

As a media trainer for many international companies, “everything you say is on the record” is a key point I try to pound home with impressionable young product managers and less-impressionable, ‘know-it-all’ senior management.  They blanch when I tell them, “If you’re drinking with a journalist until 3AM at a Las Vegas trade show, anything he remembers will be on the Web the next day.”

If you are going to talk to the press, understand they’ll use your quotes if they’re interesting.  And don’t expect to be able to take back your words;  if Powers had called Hilary a “monster” on live television, whether she took it back or not, there’s no doubt that it would be on the record.

When Tucker Carlson challenged Scotsman reporter Gerri Peev for not heeding Powers’ plea to ignore her ‘monster’ comment, Gerri Peev asked, “Are you really that acquiescent in the United States?  In the United Kingdom, journalists believe that on or off the record is a principle that’s decided ahead of the interview.”

Carlson may be right  when he implies the UK press would sell out its mother to get a story.  Cutting their teeth chasing royals, the Brits are bolder.  When I worked at the National Enquirer (and made the near-fatal mistake of trying to keep up drinking with them) the unofficial motto seemed to be ‘if you need some shit get a Brit’.  

But while Peev may seem like a nasty piece of work, she’s just a tough-minded journalist  “If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren’t doing a very good job of getting to the truth.”

That elusive truth is what journalists dig for.  And that’s why there’s no such thing as “off the record.”

It’s always tempting to bash a competitor or someone you were close to, especially when they’re down.  But when I do media training, I always counsel spokespeople to take the high road, even when the reporter brings up a competitor by name. 

First, don’t mention that company or person by name, second, acknowledge your rival in a positive way, as in “the company you mention is certainly a worthy competitor, but what makes us different is…”

Justin Timberlake just did this in his interview with Oprah.   Oprah asked Justin what he thinks is happening to his former girlfriend Britney Spears.

He said he didn’t know, but added, “What I do know about her is she has a huge heart, and she is a great person.” 

Knowing when to take the high road about a former friend now in trouble, instead of taking the cheap shot like so many others, shows Justin Timberlake has a good heart–and is destined for a long career.

As a media trainer, a key tenet we teach is to never repeat a negative, even when denying it.  President Nixon at the time of Watergate said “I am not a crook.”  Convincing, no? 

Now Nixon’s presidential library, located in Orange County, the land of Disney fantasy, has decided to join the reality-based community.  The cover-up that was Watergate will no longer be continued in the museum, although you’ll still be able to hold your wedding or barmitzvah in the Library’s reproduction of the White House East Room.  Money quote:

“Visitors learned that Watergate, which provoked a constitutional crisis and became an enduring byword for abuses of executive power, was really a “coup” engineered by Nixon enemies. The exhibit accused Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — without evidence — of “offering bribes” to further their famous coverage.

“Most conspicuous was a heavily edited, innocent-seeming version of the “smoking gun” tape of June 23, 1972, the resignation-clinching piece of evidence in which Nixon and his top aide are heard conspiring to thwart the FBI probe of Watergate.

“This was history as Nixon wanted it remembered, a monument to his decades-long campaign to refurbish his name. Nixon himself approved the exhibit before the library’s 1990 opening.

“Everybody who visited it, who knew the first thing about history, thought it was a joke,” one Nixon scholar, David Greenberg, said of the Watergate gallery. “You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Now that ‘exhibit’ is gone, tossed literally in the dustbin (dumpster) of history.  Somewhere a blue-haired Orange County matron is shedding a tear, but fear not: Digital photos were taken of each exhibit, so Nixon’s version of history will survive for digital display.

When MSG Communications media-trains executives, a key point we make is that just like their own industries, journalism, media and publishing is all about doing more with less.  If a newspaper had three reporters covering consumer electronics and gaming, for example, now there might be just one.

On a media tour with a client to Newsweek, we were having an engaged discussion with a key editor.  Suddenly, someone burst in.  “Time to blog!” they sang out brightly.  The editor’s look of incredulity, scorn and resignation was priceless.

The same pressure exists at Time.  Time Editor Rick Stengel wrote in a recent memo to staff:

Let me make this explicit: evaluations of every Time writer, correspondent, and reporter will be based on the quality and quantity of the contributions each of you makes to both the magazine and to TIME.com. TIME.com is a daily responsibility; Time magazine is a weekly responsibility.  

We are now both a 24/7 news organization online and the indispensable weekly magazine that we have always been, and always will be. We don’t own our readers or their time - we have to earn their attention and loyalty every week, every day and every hour in a media landscape that is only getting more competitive. Let’s go to work.

Like the editor at Newsweek, the Time staff doesn’t get paid extra for their new 24/7 workload.  If they’re lucky, they get to keep their jobs as long as there’s a Time in print–which Chairman Ann Moore claims will be as long as we live. 

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is a ticking time bomb–and he’s starting to damage CNN’s credibility.  The New York Times, finally catching up with MondayMorningMediaQuarterback,  challenged Dobb’s reporting on immigrants bringing leprosy to the United States. 

Dobbs needed to back away from let-them-eat-cake remarks like “If we reported it, it’s a fact,” and respond with a brief statement like this.  “On a couple of things we’ve broadcast, I’ve got to admit our critics may have a point.  From this point forward we’ll make doubly sure everything we put on the air is accurate,  and while we’ll continue to advocate for the American worker, I apologize to those I may have given offense to.”

Instead, we get this 900-word rant, as swollen with ego as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float.  Here’s some quotes with our commentary.

• “Today’s New York Times column is primarily a personal attack on me.” The Times story is not about the issues.
• The non-factual leprosy quote is from “an ad-lib on the set of this broadcast uttered more than two years ago by Christine Romans.” Blaming others/not taking responsibility for his show.
• “I’m regularly attacked by the left wing — the Southern Poverty Law Center, The New York Times, The Nation, MALDEF and MEChA — for my opposition to illegal immigration…I’m regularly attacked by the right wing — the biggest business lobbyists in the country, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Bush administration — for my criticism of so-called free trade policies and outsourcing.” Dobbs is implying that he’s a centrist and his ‘truth’ lies in the middle. Interestingly, The National Association of Manufacturers, seemingly a natural ally for this ‘leading business reporter’, slams Dobbs’ relationship with the truth–which at the end of the day, is all a reporter has.
• “The fact is, I made a mistake” He buries what should be the lead 14 columns down in his rant.
• “Corporate power, expressed by lobbyists spending billions of dollars each year in Washington to influence both political parties and public policy, represents the greatest single threat to this nation’s middle class.”  Dobbs is using airtime provided by one of those corporations, Time Warner, which also pays his $4 million salary.  Commercial speech is different than free speech, as both Pink and Don Imus have learned.
• “Those attacks from the left and the right will continue. They perhaps may get even a little more energetic. And as long as they continue to do so, you and I can rest assured that we’re doing more right than wrong on this broadcast.”  Although they try to martyr him, Dobbs’ crusade cannot be deterred, even by critics like the Mayor of San Francisco who Dobbs says, ”Might as well work for Hermann Goering.”

My concern is that Dobbs will damage the CNN and Time Warner brand, devaluing an image of credibility and unbiased news built up painstakingly over 20 years.  In the past month, Time Warner has quickly fired the head of HBO and their leading African reporter, both for alleged offenses against women. 

With Dobbs, it may be a tougher call, as he has the ratings lead .  But if he doesn’t start acting less like Howard Beale and more like Anderson Cooper, Dobbs credibility, already in tatters, will disappear completely.

In a recent column, Howard Kurtz raised the suggestion that the face-to-face interview is essentially dead.

 ”In the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail, which allows them to post the entire exchange if they feel they have been misrepresented, truncated or otherwise disrespected. And some go further, saying, You want to know what I think? Read my blog.

Jason Calcanis, chief executive of Weblogs Inc., says on his blog that “journalists have been burning subjects for so long with paraphrased quotes, half quotes, and misquotes that I think a lot of folks (especially ones who don’t need the press) are taking an email only interview policy.”

Veteran magazine editor Jeff Jarvis adds at his BuzzMachine blog: “Are interviews about information or gotcha moments? . . . Isn’t it better to get considered, complete answers?”

There’s a lot of food for thought here from both a journalistic and a media training perspective.  How do you verify who you’re actually ‘talking’ to?  If physical description is important, how do you know the 53 year-old woman you’re talking to isn’t a spoofing 15-year old boy?

Creative spellers, the less educated and non-native English writers may look dumb in an email exchange, unless reporters “clean up” their quotes, a long and dishonorable journalistic tradition.  And far from any control advantage, the spokesperson may be actually be at a disadvantage by putting thoughts in writing he could more easily back away from in a verbal interview.

For public relations pros, often acutely aware of how little control they actually have over their message, email interviews pose another control challenge.  If you’re aware of an email interview, will you hover over someone’s shoulder or watch/jump in on another screen?  More importantly, anyone in a corporation or government structure with an email address can now be subject to an email query from the press which becomes an interview.  People want to be helpful, but putting their own answers in writing without the knowledge or approval of management and public relations staff can be disasterous.

Certainly, as news organizations ruthless trim staffs, the do-more-with-less pressure means journalists will be reluctant to leave the office for even the most critical face-to-face, so phoners and email ‘interviews’ will become even more important.  (Smart publicists will continue to push for press tours that bring their spokesperson and product into the office and into the journalist’s face.)

Face-to-face interviews will continue in many settings, such as all kinds of television (no one wants to read email off another screen or have to hear the reporter’s deadly voice-over) trade shows and conferences, press tours, investigative reporting (when the reporter actually leaves his office to track down a story) and for politicians and others who need to show sincerity and thus, as Calcanis puts it, “need the press.”

But email interviews are perilously close to pure public relations opportunies.  I recently sold an international airline magazine on my doing a story on a Japanese company’s innovative female CEO, a phenomenon even more unusual in Japan than here.  I’d met the woman and spoken with her briefly.

But the company publicist told me she was uncomfortable communicating in English and would only agree to do an email interview.  I initially refused, concerned I wouldn’t know who was on the other end of the line and that I would be getting canned answers crafted by the publicist.  I wanted to do a face-to-face, or at least a phone interview, because as Kurtz says, “When you see someone’s expressions or listen to someone’s voice, you get a sense of the person that words on a screen lack.”

We went back and forth for a couple of weeks, until it all blew up when the CEO resigned, with my story departing with her.

At the Time Warner shareholder meeting microphones were set up around the room for comments.  I couldn’t resist, making a point about how media companies are vulnerable to a crisis arriving at Internet speed.  I said that Time Warner handled the arrest of HBO head Chris Albrecht on domestic charges ‘about as well as it could’ by firing him ASAP.  Then I brought up two other Time Warner properties ripe for potential crises.

One is TMZ.COM, a celebrity gossip/paparazzi site that many see as a disaster waiting to happen, with paparazzi engaging in car chases, harassment of celebrities and their kids, and pitched street battles with other photographers to get shots.   Then I mentioned Lou Dobbs on CNN with his “protect our borders” rhetoric, as having potential for crisis impacting Time Warner. I asked how the company planned to deal with it. 

“That’s a good question,” said Richard Parsons.  “Everything he says is clearly labeled as opinion.”  I don’t think so, but at least Parsons addressed the question.  The news media, on the other hand, only got part of my point; The Hollywood Reporter did it best, at least mentioning the Lou Dobbs issue. 

Claudia Eller of the LA Times, who did great reporting on the Albrecht assault, couldn’t let go of it in her piece .  “One shareholder mentioned Albrecht in passing, praising Time Warner for acting swiftly in discharging the executive after he was arrested in Las Vegas for assaulting his girlfriend and after the Los Angeles Times ran a story about his 1991 physical altercation with a subordinate.”

 When you’re the ‘covered’, as opposed to doing the ‘covering’ as a journalist, it’s interesting to see what gets picked up–and what doesn’t.  

On May 17  I attended the Time Warner annual meeting in Burbank.   CEO Richard Parsons gave a presentation, told us “we toil on your behalf” and said after years of “going sideways, we finally got some movement in the stock.”  He pointed to the board of directors, “I work for them, they work for you.”

He went over numbers and showed graphics like InStyle with Haile Berry, Bugs Bunny and CNN with Anderson Cooper, adding ”I’d like to salute publicly our journalists who put themselves in harm’s way.”

Befitting the Warner Brothers location, he showed a pair of film clips.  The latest Harry Potter looked vivid and great, while the new Hairspray left me wondering if John Travolta (in drag as the mom) has a speech impediment.  Parsons noted the studio won 10 Oscars in 2007, but I don’t see Travolta finally getting his for this.  Nonetheless, Parsons urged the audience to see the films “early and often.”

“Can old media exist in a digital world?” is the challenge for content creators, according to Parsons, and is something a writer like myself  struggles with every day.  “We’re in the content creation business; ink on paper, television, video.  Our challenge is to move our company into digital, whether you own it, rent it, watch it on an iPOD.”

Parsons is unflappable, as befits a man who says he’s a big fan of Happy Feet.  He also has a good sense of humor, staying calm while noted corporate gadfly John Chevvedden talked about Parson’s high ($22 million) compensation.  When another stockholder admonished Parsons for selling Google years ago, he said, “We could have done better, but no one has ever gone broke taking a profit.”

What’s Time Warner all about?  Parsons put it this way:

1. Make money for our shareholders.

2. Do some good in the world.

3. Have some fun doing it. 

From a media training point of view, couldn’t have said it better myself.

WinHEC, the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, is a hard-core technology event.  The attendees are mostly engineers from hardware companies (and a few freelance geeks) building devices around Microsoft products like the Vista operating system, which Bill Gates says has sold 40 million copies. (I’m still waiting for my promised free Vista upgrade from HP 5 months after I bought my new PC; HP customer service is right down there with Dell.)

I missed most of Gates’ presentation, but I did catch one by one of Microsoft’s unsettlingly young and poised product managers.   He was talking about Rally,  which Mary Jo Foley calls “a set of networking protocols and licenses designed to simplify consumers’abilities to connect peripherals to Windows Vista and to each other.”

The presenter was a techie, presenting to a techie audience–yet he took the time to create and go through a slide explaining arcane Rally terms and acronyms like Windows Connect Now (WCN) and Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS). 

In our media training program, we call this ‘when in doubt, spell it out.’  Too often, speakers cannot resist the urge to do an ‘information dump’ on their audience, who won’t understand the jargon, acronyms or internal Kool-Aid that company spokespeople have been drinking.  And when an audience doesn’t understand, they won’t ask for clarification; who wants to lose face?

So kudos to Microsoft for understanding this and enhancing communications with their target audience.   But don’t rest on your laurels: twenty thirty years of media training has almost brought forth a kindler, gentler Bill 2.0.

Paris fired her long-suffering publicist Elliott Mintz over the weekend.  No doubt her DUI-related sentencing was all his fault. 

 

Usually, the best media strategy is to and try to move forward.  But unlike Prison Break star Lane Garrison, Hilton blames others for her conviction, saying that Mintz had told her she was permitted to drive for work-related reasons.

For his part, Mintz took the high road.  “I have nothing but love and respect for Paris and her family. Paris is a wonderful person and does not deserve the punishment that was handed down by the court. I only wish her my best.”

Mintz’ public relations job description, apparently, was not only to keep her in the media spotlight, but to keep her out of jail. Now she’ll have to find someone else to clean up after her.