StevenSilvers.com

Is it ever appropriate to answer a reporter with “no comment”?

In almost all cases, no.

Imagine this scene that never happens:

Reporter:     "Mr. Fiebish, allegations are that you took bribes from your vendors. Are they true?"
Mr. Brown:   "No comment."
Reporter:     "Oh. Sorry. Forget it then. Lunch?"

"No comment" isn't the same as not answering a reporter's question. It's a quotable refusal left open to interpretation. That's usually not a good thing.

There are only three good answers to a reporter's direct question: I can, I will and I can't. For you more formal executives that would be: Thy shall, Thy whilst and Nay! Thy mustn't.

Here they are in real life:

1. I know the answer and it is thus. Using "thus" is optional
2. I don't know the answer but will get it for you. Maybe not you specifically, but your minions. Or your PR people.
3. I can't answer the question because (insert here) I don't know the answer, the information is proprietary, I'm already late for my Zumba class, etc. You get the idea.

There's no problem not answering a question for a legitimate reason. Just understand that using "no comment" as the extent of your answer will make you look guilty, arrogant and afraid even if you're not.
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All the news that fits for free

I got an unsolicited email from an online news site offering to run a story on my client in exchange for answering a few questions:

1. What is your organization's background?
2. How has it changed over time?
3. What are its main products and services?
4. Who are some of its biggest customers and how did the company attract them?
5. How does your organization differentiate itself from its competition?
6. What are your organization's biggest challenges?
7. What are Your organization's plans for the future?
8. Could you please include two or three images (or could we have permission to reprint images from your website)  to run with the story?
9. Who should we attribute these answers to?

I chuckled at the audaciousness of the request, and then it occurred to me. While sites that live on "contributed" material aren't legitimate news sources, they're flourishing like unchaperoned bunnies on a summer picnic.

For a lot of flacks, these sites are easy publicity.  They're another hit to include in the coverage report and repost on the company's web site. It doesn't matter that nobody's ever heard of the source, as long as it sounds good.

For the online news sites, it's easy profit by selling click-through advertising on web pages stuffed with free content.  Beats having a newsroom full of reporters demanding paychecks and office furniture.

In the end everybody's making money on one of the Internet's most disingenuous contributions to the information age:  Publicity masquerading as journalism masquerading as news media.

The selling of breaking news that delivers nothing

 

Media will eventually understand that teasing breaking news is bad for business. In the meantime local TV stations will do promos like these:

“Will the most dangerous blizzard in recorded history hit the city tomorrow morning? We’ll tell you on ActionNews5, right after American Idol!"

They must realize that already know the weather, that we have Internet, Twitter, iPhone aps and the Weather Channel. But they tease anyway, happily announcing that they have a secret. Teasing breaking news is one of those Eisenhower-era mass media gimmicks that worked when people had to wait for the day’s broadcast or tomorrow’s newspaper to find out what was going on. Imagine the notion now: That millions of Americans must turn to a handful of news outlets for headlines, sometimes many hours after the fact.  

So why do they do it?

Because breaking news is still the currency of today’s 24-hour news cycle.  There are more news outlets than ever, but they cover fewer stories. They’re thinner, with smaller news holes and fewer reporters.  So they compete on headlines, on being first to deliver what everyone else will have minutes or seconds later.

The race to be first is why news people behave like those cigar-chomping sensationalists 
of the old movies.  It's why CBS is getting heat for hyping its “exclusive interview” (above) with Penn State assistant coach Mike McQuery, a central figure in the Sandusky scandal. 

CBS went all out to promote the exclusive, promising that "McQueary breaks his silence and opens a window... into his emotions.”

Here’s what viewers got:

CBS: "Do you have any idea when you think you might be ready to talk?"

McQueary: "This process has to play out. I just don't have anything else to say."

CBS: "Yeah ... OK ... and then just one last thing, just describe your emotions right now."

McQueary: "All over the place, just kind of, uh, shaken."

CBS: "Crazy?"

McQueary: "Crazy."

CBS: "And you said what, like a ..."

McQueary: "Snowglobe."

CBS: "Like a snowglobe."

McQueary: "Yes sir."

CBS: "All right."

Bottom line: CBS hyped a 24-second “no comment” that lasted as long as some of its promos. Other media fell over themselves to break the news of how CBS was being criticized. And on and on.

It's no wonder that more than two-thirds of Americans have no faith in what media are selling them. 

Metro Denver’s newspaper crisis is a matter of will

The Denver Post intends to cut its newsroom by another eight percent. 

One reporter told a client of mine that it's "hard to figure how we'll still put out a semi-credible product." 

Business and civic leaders around the region are frustrated. "We got used to not having Denver Post or Rocky Mountain News reporters at city council meetings a long time ago," one mayor told me. "But now they're barely covering the city election or anything else, either.  What's infuriating is that people tell me all the time that they want a good newspaper, that they'd pay more for local coverage."

What you hear from a lot of media people around Denver, though, is that the newspaper is a lost cause. They insist that there's no "business model" to sustain revenue.

Repeat that: There's no business model for a daily newspaper with an established brand, talented reporters and a virtually exclusive relationship to a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people.

You have to say this over and over before you believe it. Because it's bull.

There's a big difference between not having a business model and there not being one.

Consider all the media choices that capture today's eyeballs and eardrums. Now look at the Denver Post and DenverPost.com. Are they the best products they could be? Do they strive to be compelling and relevant, day in and day out?

Or are they tired vestiges of Eisenhower-era, mass-market display advertising and classifieds thinking?

I hate to sound like a motivational poster. But what's keeping the Denver Post from succeeding in the information age is the Denver Post.

"The tradition-bound and risk-averse nature of the newspaper culture is the single greatest reason publishers are losing readers and revenues while competing digital products run circles around them," wrote Alan D. Mutter, a former Silicon Valley CEO who teaches media economics at the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. "Newspapers need some fresh DNA that will make them think and act more like techies and less like, well, newspaper people."

You want to turn things around, Denver Post? 

Then change.

And do it now.

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Padding the death count and other natural disasters of hype

Hurricane Irene was plenty terrible. But reasonable people started sensing that things were overstated when
headlines heralding the storm's rising "death toll" included a North Carolina man who died of a heart attack while nailing up plywood.

The literal overkill was inevitable. Hurricane Irene was the perfect storm of hype, an approaching disaster fueled by the hot air rising from the national media and political epicenters that lay directly in its path.

For the cable networks this was a once-in-a-career relevancy, a chance to glue their logos forever to the bottom right corner of Armageddon. For politicians at the door of a campaign season, it was as opportunity to show big-time leadership, to hurry millions of people off the beach in advance of seeing themselves standing in shirtsleeves on the wet ruins, bullhorns and bully in hand.

Except thankfully it didn't happen. And now those same media and politicians are dealing with the real PR disaster of having to manage perceptions among a public that will be even more cynical about the next dire thing that comes along.
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** Must-clicks **

• Howard Kurtz in The Daily Beast | A Hurricane of Hype
• Tony Harden in The Telegraph | Politicians, the media and the Hurricane Irene apocalypse that never was
• From the Philadelphia Inquirer online..."Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist with the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, which is receiving kudos for its accurate and restrained reporting, said last night that some cable anchors were still reporting that Irene could strike New Jersey and New York as a major hurricane long after his team determined that it clearly was weakening."

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UPDATE:  August 29, 2011 -  American Red Cross response to continue for weeks... Seeking both financial and blood donations.  Click here to help right now.

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Tech media: Same as it ever was

For all that the Internet has changed the world, the big dogs in technology media are still very much the same as they were years before that Y2K bug thing.

A new poll from PRSourceCode finds that PR people of today mostly aim their tech-related flackery at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Information Week, Network World, CIO, Wired, EE Times, CNET, IDG, PC Magazine and Info World.

Extra credit if you can remember which one said that DOS would never die.
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Five ways to improve your news media interview

Most CEOs and top executives are very good communicators. They're articulate, focused and command the room with their presence.

But get them in front of a reporter and many of these same high-achievers try too hard to be a perfectly packaged persona. When they see video of themselves being interviewed, they're shocked at how artificial they look and sound.

I often reiterate five media interview methods to help them project their real selves:

Speak, don't pronounce. | With reporters, keep the tone and tenor to that of having a conversation. Many executives have a wonderfully gracious, polished style, but they'll overdo it in media settings and come across like they're running for vice president. Experienced reporters are hyper-sensitive to business people who speechify or drip with techniques they obviously got from media training. It can have quite a negative influence on the interview.

Don't try to make every swing a home run. | The best way to sound like you were water-boarded by your PR department is to force every talking point into every answer. Instead, integrate what you want to get across in context to the conversation, just like you do in real life. And make sure you're PR people help you prioritize you're the three key messages for each interview out of the gazillion that might be in your communications strategy.

Slow down.  |  Everyone tends to speed on in interviews and presentations, either because their nervous or animated in their intensity. Whatever the reason, try to remember to take a literal breath between passages. It will feel weird at first but it will help.

Tell stories.  |  Many executives have a natural gift for telling stories, but in an interview they'll often make passing reference to an anecdote or not finish a story.  Part of this is a matter of just going too fast, and part is not having all those great stories embedded into your personal style of narrative.  This is something you and your PR people should work on constantly.

Keep to a problem-solution orientation. |  Try to spell out specific problems or issues that your organization is solving. Reporters who have not worked outside the newsroom often don't grasp the full dynamic of a corporation or organization. Talking in terms of problems and solutions will help them understand the value you create for the people who matter most to your bottom line.
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What it means that so many journalists think PR people are idiots.

I heard from an editor who tells me that in a single day:

… A PR rep pitched a local college’s new MBA program but said it was against school policy to reveal how many students were enrolled.

… A PR agency sent a press release announcing that its client won a huge new contract without naming the customer.  They instead argued that there were still many other "interesting angles to cover."

“What the hell is wrong with these people?” he asked.

It’s a question I’ve heard more in the last five years than in my whole career.  Journalists tell me about all sorts of amazing PR stories:

… Press releases that arrive as Word documents, then shows the client’s notes and revisions when the reporter clicks “track changes.”

… A drug company sued by shareholders because its PR agency issued a "media advisory" promising historic news at a press conference, which turns out to be nothing.  The PR agency argues that the release it sent over BusinessWire wasn't meant to be seen by the general public.

… A reporter tells an account executive that the press releases they keep sending him are useless.  “We don’t cover product announcements,” he says. “That’s obvious by just reading our magazine, isn’t it?”  The PR pro pauses and says, “No. But can you send me one?”

… Media outlets get a newsworthy press release regarding a large local company, then get calls 30 minutes later from the PR agency demanding they not cover the story because they "didn't mean to send it out."

People get paid for this.

There are many smart and talented PR people.  But in the last decade there has evolved a subculture of publicists who seem to revel in their obliviousness about how news media works.  This is the crowd that journalists, editors and producers can’t stand to deal with. Most good PR people can't stand them either.

It's the oblivious flacks who keep alive the silly, sophmoric notion that PR and media are opponents in some great battle for truth.

No, we just got some clueless people in our ranks.

It’s not hard to understand how most of them got here.  These are people who grew up not reading newspapers, who didn't watch CNN, who didn’t open Time or Newsweek unless they had to for a school paper.  They learned about current events from snippets on their Yahoo home page, by watching Comedy Central and reality TV, by picking up references to news injected in the celebrity gossip banter of their favorite drive-time radio stations.  They know everything about pop culture but can’t name the last five presidents or explain the difference between a CEO and a COO. 

Maybe they majored in public relations or communications, but they’ve never worked in a newsroom, much less published anything.  And now they’re called media relations specialists.

The good news is that companies and clients that employ the facile flacks are getting the idea. There are now more ex-journalists in public relations – albeit with mixed results, as some reporters make terrible spokespeople.  In other areas, you’re seeing more investment in training and in hiring real pros – young and old – who have a lifelong relationship with news content.  And many bad media relations people have moved on to social media, where they happily don’t have to write long paragraphs or use the telephone.

Still, stupid press flackery gets plenty of attention on the Internet, from insiders like Bad Pitch Blog, Denver PR Blog and PR Daily, to mainstream media like The Huffington Post to the New York Times. 

Sure.  Some of it is terribly overstated. 

But anything that chases PR people who don’t read newspapers to full-time gigs as Twitter Tweeters is good for business.

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Also:  PR and the business of enthusiastic incompetence.

Denver loses another national media office

Just got word that the New York Times is shutting down its Denver bureau this week.  National correspondent and former bureau chief Kirk Johnson tells us that “working from home is the new order of the day.”
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The upside to journalism's downfall

In an essay for Atlantic magazine, James Fallows laments the rise of new media but sees hope for a revived notion of true reporting.

Guest post by Megan Lane

While most media pundits lament the passing of journalism’s golden years, writer James Fallows also sees a silver lining.

In the aptly titled Learning to Love the (Shallow, Divisive, Unreliable) New Media, Fallows reiterates fears about today’s profit-driven, infotainment brand of news reporting. “Media will fail to cover too much of what really matters,” he writes, “as they are drawn toward the sparkle of entertainment and away from the depressing realities of the statehouse.”

A potentially frightening result of this sparkling facileness is the deterioration of the nation’s very intellectual capacity as mass media “optimized for attracting quick hits turns into a continual-distraction machine for society as a whole.”

Today's media consumers are uniquely empowered to decide the type of product they watch, read or listen to. We are no longer a national audience being told what’s important by a handful of trusted gatekeepers, says broadcast icon Ted Koppel. We are instead, he says, a “a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers.” Has this tectonic shift in how Americans consume news diminished journalism’s institutional goal of ensuring a knowledgeable public? To some extent, yes. You can’t deny that in a consumer-driven news world, the Kardashians will win mass audience over the war in Iraq any day of the week.

Even so, Fallows believes that there may be hope for us. Yes, new media may mean a more unreliable, decentralized, “fluffier” style of journalism. But the Internet age may also help to bring a richer supply of legitimately important news to the masses in ways that no previous delivery vehicle could hope to accomplish. For all the sloppy and poorly produced content, media consumers today have access to an infinitely wider array of experienced news sources and public policy discussions that didn’t – and still don’t – exist in most newspapers and television coverage.

Could the new media age actually improve the field of journalism? It may be happening as we watch. Fallows concludes by considering the historic events in Egypt:

“ A major event in world history was covered more quickly, with more nuance, involving a greater range of voices and critical perspectives, than would have been conceivable even a few years ago. Within hours of the first protests in Egypt, American and world audiences read dispatches from professional correspondents—on Web sites, rather than waiting until the next day, as they had to during the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Add to this faster, broader coverage the impact of amateur YouTube videos, real-time Twitter feeds, blog posts and Facebook conversations – all happening literally in time with breaking headlines. The result is a depth of news coverage and analysis that while difficult to classify in the context of traditional journalism is engaging the public like never before.

If Fallows is right, the death of journalism as we know it may actually be a rebirth into a new era of redefined, better journalism. It may be a maturing of the information age where truth still rises above the clutter of the information glut to be exposed, analyzed and spread further than ever before possible. Here’s hoping that he’s right.

(Megan Lane is a Senior Associate at GBSM, Inc. and was previously an editor at the Aspen Daily News.  Scatterbox editor Steven Silvers contributed to this post.)