09/19

Reporters are human, and they exhibit the human characteristic of thinking alike at times.  The myth of the independent journalist standing apart and reporting without fear or favor is just that for most reporters -- a myth.  There is a reason that "pack journalism" is a topic of discussion in journalism schools and among the media. 

PR practitioners guard clients at times like this and often, save clients from certain destruction in terms of reputation and their ability to business. 

I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon when I received a mysterious phone call from an assistant to go at once to my boss'  office.  It was curious because my boss usually calls me himself.  I walked quickly down the hall and found him sitting with another colleague.  The reason for the call swiftly became apparent.  They were developing questions that reporters might ask a client facing a crisis.  The task was to think of the nastiest questions a reporter might launch at the CEO and to have answers ready that kept the CEO and company out of trouble.

Some call this creating spin, but I don't.  One would be a fool to go into a tough press conference unprepared and expecting the media not to pick up on your unfortunate phrase that expressed not what you meant but something that embarrasses you.  We all make slips, but we don't want to make them in front of the world with everyone watching. 

The fact is that a person or a company can be entirely in the right and still lose a reputation when media hounds howl as one.  It has happened numerous  times just in my lifetime, and regrettably, government prosecutors have been behind some of the worst abuses --especially the "perp" walk where someone not yet judged guilty is paraded in front of cameras.  One does not recover a reputation easily after such an incident.  Millions are convinced that he or she "did it," whatever it is.

If PR practitioners were to do nothing else except guard the gates against such unwarranted intrusion, they are worth their pay.  So, we finished the questions and shipped them off to the client who knows that it is better to be prepared than not.  It was one more task in a day's work and probably the most important job I undertook yesterday.

09/18

His complaint centered on the fact that regulators and politicians are making loud noises but not moving on the hard work needed to correct alleged abuses.  It's easier to play to the crowd.

Optics and action should complement each other, but too often they don't.  We PR people are more guilty than most in making grand gestures and ignoring substance.  It is a sin of the business like gluttony for gourmands.  That is why PR practitioners should be more vigilant than most in making sure clients never speak without substance to what they have to say.  It is better to speak less and be meaningful than to chatter and be empty.

Although I am a lifelong Democrat (Dummycrat, some friends say), I found President Clinton to be offensive in his constant spinning.  There was never a flag that he wouldn't get in front of, a mountain setting, a manufacturing backdrop, something to show that he "cared."  The problem was he never got much done, and I got tired of listening to him.  He was incapable of speaking for five minutes.  An hour was a short speech.  The Gettysburg Address, one of the great speeches in American history, is five minutes if you stretch it.  Clinton was lost in optics, but in his defense, that may be because he did not have votes for action.

Too many corporations engage in optics as well and ignore action.  The Bubble Period was time of self-reflecting mirrors.  One could hardly tell the truth behind jargon and frequently, there was no truth. 

We are in a sober period of American History.  Skepticism runs high and credibility is low.  Contrary to what a PR practitioners might think, it is a perfect time for PR.  We can concentrate on substance and not image, and we can justify it to clients because Americans are in no mood to be fooled. 

The more I think about it, the more I realize good times are not good for PR.
 

09/17

Back to Where?  The US Senate has voted to repeal the Federal Communications Commission's new media ownership rules that would allow networks to buy more local stations in a market.  They are fighting for Freedom of  Speech, etc., etc.  So, in a fit of nobility that has nothing to do with their campaigns and local media support,  the Senate voted 55 to 40 to roll back the FCC rules.

The problem, of course, is that the repeal is not veto-proof, and President Bush has decided that he will veto the legislation if it ever gets to him.  This is unlikely given that the House has not yet decided to place the bill on its calendar. 

I find the affair absurd.  There were periods of great media concentration in the past, and America survived.  In the end, the media conglomerates perished, as all things do.  About the only senator who understood what was happening and voted against the legislation was Senator Don Nickles, (R-Okla)  who said, "We have Internet, we have cable, we have lots of opportunities for people to get their news from a variety of sources." Precisely.

Any PR practitioner who scans the media can tell any senator in Washington that there are more media sources available today than ever.  If you were to do nothing but scan media starting with newspapers, then magazines then Internet news then blogs and finally television on dozens of cable channels, you would not get done for hours each day.  You would also conclude that media concentration is a lobbyist's nightmare but not reality.

We are saturated in media, and one can sample many viewpoints from a desktop computer without stirring to watch TV.  Let newspapers and TVs and radios combine.  When they do, the Internet will become the medium of choice for local news, as it has in some communities.  Let media moguls start Web sites too.  Web sites are so inexpensive to start and to run that virtually anyone can become a publisher -- as blogs have proven.

The senators are worried about their messages getting out on TV in markets where they compete for reelection.  They don't want change, and they don't want anything to upset their plans. 

I am as dedicated to Free Speech as anyone, but what is happening here is not a Free Speech issue.

09/16

Gee, I didn't know Ohio & Michigan were in the "Northeast."  What makes you jump to the presumption that last month's blackout was limited to the Northeast?  It started in northern Ohio.  It hit us here in Michigan, with my electricity out for about a day and a half.  Saying the blackout was "the Northeast blackout" reminds me of the famous New Yorker cartoon.  Maybe a "mea culpa" thought for the day would be a useful amends for your faux pas?

I stand accused of an "East  Coast Mentality."  But truthfully, when I wrote that line, I was recalling a satellite picture taken the night of the blackout.  It was clear there that the northeast quadrant of the US was dark -- not including Boston, which did not lose power.  Admittedly, that northeast quadrant included all of New York, Pennsylvania, Maine and the usual East Coast States north of the Mason-Dixon line.  In my mental picture, I included Ohio and Michigan in the darkened outline because, well, in land mass, it is the northeast quadrant of the U.S. 

But Pete is right that Ohio and Michigan are not culturally the East Coast.   They see things differently there -- especially the practice of public relations.  So while I might be correct geographically, I am wrong  otherwise.  I'll give a half of a mea culpa for that.

Pete raised a more interesting point that needs to be examined by every PR practitioner.   When do you exhibit unconscious bias and perspective?  The answer is that you show it all of the time and unless you work hard to counter it, you have a distorted view of what is happening.  There is an old saw in business that you run when you hear someone say, "I'm from corporate and I'm here to help."  In the field, anyone from headquarters is a box of rocks without a clue. 

Pete is right that Manhattanites think they know what is happening on the other side of the Hudson River, just like people in Washington, D.C. think they know what is going on in the states.   They don't, but you can't tell them that.  My sister who lives in my home state of California once said to me in exasperation, "You East Coast types think you know everything!"   The funny part is that she is Californian, and if you know Californians, they know they know everything that counts.   Or, they think they are on the leading edge of knowing what counts.  It's the citizens in Nebraska and Iowa who are left out because coastal residents fly over them. (They forget that one of the richest men in America lives in Lincoln.)

I have biases, of course, but I remind myself and try to adjust.  One constant mistake I make is assuming people know more than they do.  For example, I am brought up short when I read polls that reveal most Americans still don't know the names of the Democratic candidates for President.  How can that be?  It's not important to them yet.  And, they are paying attention to things that count more -- like jobs and raising families.   Should I be upset that they ignore the squabbling of those who would be president?  Actually, they are smarter than those of us who do.  We're lost  in trivia:  They're focused on living. 

Now, one final reason why I give Peter only a half mea culpa.  I was born and raised in California, but I lived in Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri and  Illinois for many years.  I am a token outsider in New York City.

09/15

My story of miscommunication is tiny, but my personal discomfort was high.  This story has to do with my plumber, a nice fellow, who usually understands what I want to do and gently tells me why I shouldn't. 

I have a problem on the outside of my house.  There is an outside stairway to a basement door.  The nine concrete steps to the 40x40-inch landing at the door are waterfalls during rain storms.  Because this last summer was unusually wet, I had rain leaking under the door constantly into the laundry room -- an unhappy situation requiring a large vacuum to get the water up. 

I resolved to fix the situation.  I suggested to my plumber that it would be great if we could dig a drywell through the landing in front of the door.  That way when the water splashed down the steps it would plunge into the drywell and a sump pump would lift it eight feet over the retainer wall and dump it into the yard.   My plumber thought the idea through and said it would work.  I said in a moment of insanity that I would dig the pit for the drywell.  I thought he needed a 32-inch-deep hole by nine inches wide. 

To dig that hole I had to cut away half of the concrete slab in the 40x40 inch space surrounded by 7-foot high gray walls.  So I borrowed my plumber's jackhammer last weekend, cut away half the slab and grunted through cutting the well with a chipping bar, post-hole digger and shovel.  There was no easy way to get the dirt out of there.  I had to load buckets with 60 pounds of dirt then haul them up the nine steps to dump them into a wheelbarrow positioned waist high on a retainer wall.   That meant I had to left each bucket to my chest to spill it into the barrow. 

I used to do stuff like this when I was young and a laborer, but I'm not young and I'm not a laborer.  So I jackhammered, shoveled and did what it took to dig the hole and lug the dirt out of there.  I was proud of myself. 

About the middle of last week, my plumber stopped by to see the job.  He took one look and was disappointed.  That wasn't a drywell, he explained.  A drywell was taking the whole 40x40-inch slab out and digging the whole 40x40-inch space to 32 inches.  Ouch.  But I thought you said... 

This weekend, I hauled the jackhammer down the steps again, took out the whole 40x40-inch slab and dug the drywell all the way down.  It rained on Saturday, and I wasn't able to finish so on Sunday morning, I was lifting mud up the steps.  Hours later, I was done -- in more ways than one. 

I hope my plumber is satisfied this time.  One miscommunication is enough.