Blind Man Swinging at a Piñata

By Eric M. Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers®, LLC

First, this disclaimer: I have no preference in the GOP presidential contest. I observe press conferences, interviews and debates through the prism of techniques.

With that said, Herman Cain’s response to sex harassment charges has been a graduate-level course in what NOT to do in a crisis.

Observing Cain and his campaign has been like watching a blind man swinging at a piñata. Every response has been an instant reaction without prior thought or planning, constantly missing the mark. As a result, Cain’s story has changed from one interview to the next. As more details emerge, his explanation adds a new wrinkle, provoking more questions and a picture of an organization in chaos.

Cain’s communications team—which may be a generous description—has been amateurish. Chief of Staff Mark Block took that a step further, appearing on Fox News and with a page of messages he visibly referred to during the live interview. In addition, Block charged the Rick Perry campaign for leaking the harassment story to Politico, a charge that very likely could be wrong, thus creating even deeper problems and concerns for the Cain campaign and its credibility. (Click on the video below.)

Herman Cain and his people were alerted this story was coming out about 10 days in advance. Their apparent inaction in doing due diligence and preparing a factual, credible, cogent and comprehensive response inevitably raises questions about the candidate and his ability to organize and lead. They had an opportunity to get ahead of this story, but their inaction has them trailing, keeping them off message.

Today’s reality of instant planet-wide communication makes it a priority to have a strong, credible communications infrastructure. And not just for political candidates; it’s imperative for all businesses and organizations.

…But You Can’t Hide

By Eric Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers®

Did someone forget to tell doctors in Wisconsin about cameras, smart phones, the Internet, social media and cable news outlets?

You’d think people smart enough to get through medical school would understand that in today’s world of instant global communications anything they say or do, especially in the in the public arena, can be recorded and distributed.

And so it appears some doctors—certainly more than just one—were handing out signed notes to protesting teachers to use as illness excuses for their absences from school.

One of those who documented the practice on video was a Fox News producer. The doctor did not know her, had not examined her, yet gave her an official note excusing her from work for being sick.

Have these doctors broken the law, or are they simply guilty of a major ethical violation? Conjecture over that quickly followed on-air. One physician, Marc Siegel, suggested that medical licenses could (perhaps even should) be in jeopardy.

Apparently, stupidity is not limited to the stupid. It can infect all demographics and ethnicities, including even the most educated among us. Today’s media and communication realities are fueling revolution throughout the Mideast. It’s stunning to watch those who should know better ethically and morally act as if no one will ever find out what they've done.

To its credit, the Wisconsin Medical Society has gone on record condemning doctors who are writing and signing illness excuse notes for protesting teachers.

Internet Forecaster Predicts Future

Andrew Gaspar predicted the Internet

By Eric M. Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers, LLC

The Internet: our instant connection to the world.

What does the future hold? Andrew Gaspar is something of a futurist. In 1980, he predicted the Internet. (I don’t know if he consulted first with Al Gore.)

In those days, he says, it was easier to forecast the future because things moved much less quickly. Today, everything is on super-drive.

With that caveat, what does Gaspar see in his cyber crystal ball now?

· More and more local focus by local media; focus that is continually narrowing to news as close as your neighborhood and constantly being refreshed.

Editor’s Note: Traditional media—your local TV, newspapers, radio—are being forced to increase their local coverage, too. You see it in many metro newspapers today; cutbacks in national and international reporters; AP and Reuters can do that for them. Instead, they are putting their dollars into more local reporting. At least, the smart ones who want to resume being profitable are.

· Advertising still is catching up and will catch up because advertisers will learn in order to survive they will have to follow these local trends.

· Social networks will influence our behavior more and more. Learning about a book a friend read, you’ll be able to see other books they might like. The same for movies. And your contacts in social media will be major influencers in your buying habits.

· A future online business might be one that can help you erase embarrassing postings, pictures and videos you may have made at an earlier, more naïve age.

· Mobile networks will be able to spot where you are located and run an advertisement on your phone for a nearby story to entice you in. Of course, you’ll feel like you’re being followed, because you are!

· Education will be transformed, according to Gaspar. He envisions taking the enthusiasm of playing online games and moving it into a classroom environment where various media can be used in teaching along with live Q&A between the students and teacher.

· The life we’re seeing developing in the virtual world—Avatars and the economy that world is generating—is just the beginning. It’s a safer, less stressful world to escape to.

Video of Gaspar’s 1980 prediction followed by video of his latest forecast are below for you to click on.

Honest Opinion vs. Political Correctness

By Eric Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers, LLC

The Juan Williams episode reopens these long-unanswered questions: Where does the right to express an opinion end and political correctness begin? And, how has political correctness managed to become a duplicitous tool to control speech while being applied unevenly in American society?

Whether you agree with Williams politically, you would be hard-pressed to effectively question his intellectual integrity. While left of center, he’s refreshingly honest when he criticizes those on his side of a political issue.

In what appears to be a knee-jerk decision due to the offended sensibilities of a tilted news organization, NPR acted swiftly and, as many along the entire political spectrum are saying, unjustly and unwisely.

Juan Williams is too talented and intelligent to suffer any long-term damage. His former employer on the other hand just might have marginalized itself and slapped the government gift horse square in the mouth.

If the GOP takes over of the U.S. House, that's where federal budgets begin their legislative adventure. And that's where Congress just might punish NPR. Also, the network currently is in a fund-raising period. It will be interesting to see how donations compare to expectations after its firing of Juan Williams.

Williams tells Fox News how he was fired in the video below.

You Talkin' To Me?

He almost looked at the camera. Almost. (Click on the video below.)

But Joe Romm with the Center for American Progress never quite made the full optical commitment and as a result most, if not all, of what he was saying probably wasn’t heard. Because of his eyes.

He was looking at something. Or someone. Perhaps it was a TV monitor. Big mistake doing that. If it was a monitor, he should’ve asked them to either turn it off or turn it around. His eyes needed to be glued to the camera lens, like a magnet.

Romm is talking about Global Warming. He believes in it. That’s fine; this post is not interested in that debate. Did he make some good points? Hard to say. While he’s talking, anyone watching is wondering what he’s looking at. And why it’s not the camera.

This is a chronic issue. Your eyes are all important, as documented in two earlier posts here: The Eyes Have It! and The Eyes Have It, Part Deux. It’s worth repeating: non-verbals (a/k/a body language) account for more than 90% of what you communicate.

Commander-in-Chief Rewind: Mishandling the News Media

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Are these really the same people who ran Barack Obama’s brilliant campaign? And is this president the same man who, as a candidate, talked about bringing an end to a politically polarized Nation’s Capitol?

It's too difficult to refrain from commenting on this “war” between the White House and Fox News. You can tolerate such stupidity only so long. And it is stupid.

By declaring war on Fox, the administration serves the best interests of Fox. Now all the other networks, as well as other national and local media nationwide are talking about Fox. You can’t buy that kind of exposure. And where does any administration, Democrat or Republican, get the right to ordain which media are legitimate news organizations. Additionally, where does their chutzpah originate to tell other networks not to follow administration stories that Fox breaks.

Especially interesting about that suggestion is that it came right after senior editors at both the Washington Post and New York Times admitted they failed to follow up the two major Fox stories on green jobs czar Van Jones and ACORN. Apparently, those mea culpas alarmed administration insiders.

There are other stupid things about this White House campaign. Fox dominates the cable news ratings by better than 2 to 1. Yet senior advisor David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel fired shots on separate networks a couple of weeks ago. That followed the first volley from Obama communications director Anita Dunn. And then, Valerie Jarrett, one of the president’s closest associates and advisors, joined the fight on CNN (click on video below). Ironically, she chose the network that comes in 4th in a four network race and where the smallest audience was watching.

There’s been some conjecture that the White House picked this fight now in order to divert attention from other things, like health care reform. But, has this ill-conceived offensive actually backfired and validated Obama’s fiercest critics?

Instead of their ongoing boycott of Fox News, the president and his senior aides could get a lot more mileage by making themselves accessible to the number one cable network. Since Fox has the largest, most diverse audience, it simply makes much more sense to reach out to all those people instead of alienating them.

Some other observations. If the administration continues trying to divide and conquer...that is, convince other news media to ostracize Fox, it might just find itself arming a bigger army of defenders. After all, the others have to figure if today it's Fox, tomorrow it might be us.

And, in the video below, CNN's Campbell Brown asked Jarrett if she believes MSNBC, often accused of being an administration lackey network, also is biased. Jarrett evaded the question and then proceeded to make vague accusations that Fox has aired inaccurate, inflammatory stories. Brown, a veteran reporter formerly with NBC News, failed to press Jarrett on the MSNBC question, and did not ask for specifics on Jarrett's claims against Fox. As a result, her timidity provided more evidence to CNN's own critics that it, too, is "carrying water" for the president.

Making a Case Against Luxury Taxes

New revenue injections?

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Luxury tax: A tax placed on products or services that are deemed to be unnecessary or non-essential. This type of tax is an indirect tax in that the tax increases the price of the good or service and is only incurred by those who purchase or use the product.

You’ve no doubt heard about some of the “creative” taxes being talked about and—in some cases—perhaps even close to reality. They are ideas your local, state and federal representatives may be dreaming up to fill in the recession-led shortfall they’re experiencing .

There’s the sugar tax, ostensibly to combat obesity in kids while also thinning your wallet. Coca-Cola Company CEO Muhtar Kent thinks it’s a bad idea. No surprise there, but he supports his position with one particularly interesting fact:

A study that says an excise charge on products like his extensive line of colored and clear sugar waters would be about .02% effective in reducing Junior's blubber. He recently made his case quite persuasively on CNBC. Watch for his proactive body language in this video, especially how he leans forward and punctuates points with his hands.

Then there’s the suggested Botax on Botox and related vanity medical expenses. Those ideas cut too close to home for plastic surgeons. To her credit, Dr. Jennifer Walden admits at the outset in a Fox News interview that any vanity tax would be bad for her business. She also makes a case for patients who need her services as a result of some kind of mishap, like an accident. And she takes it a step further, saying a Botax would be discriminatory (click on the video).



Dr. Walden definitely had her message prepared, and she probably rehearsed, too, which is advisable. But while turning away from her interviewer to face the camera may have seemed a cute little move, it came off as contrived and it was a distraction.

Let the Media Help Say It for You

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

It’s the National Retail Federation vs. Wal-Mart. Despite the federation’s 2500 membership roster, this has the feel of David vs. Goliath.

So, when you’re at an apparent disadvantage of that degree, what can you do? Get some help from the news media, of course.

These two seemingly aligned organizations are on opposing sides of healthcare reform. Wal-Mart, often at war with unions and their attempts to organize the massive retailer’s workforce, has “partnered” with one of its most aggressive and long-time antagonists, the Service Employees International Union in favor of employer-mandated healthcare. The federation says that would be a job killer and put many retailers out of business.

The federation’s Sr. VP for Government Affairs, Steve Pfister, recently carried that message to target audiences watching Fox News Channel’s Your World, and took advantage of some questions from substitute host Stuart Varney.

Varney: “Maybe Wal-Mart did because it knew it could do it and it would put unbearable pressure on its direct competitors.”

Pfister: “Well Stuart, you said that, I didn’t, but I think there might be some truth to the comment you just made.”

And Varney said it for him, giving Pfister an opportunity to simply second that emotion. Then Varney opened another door of opportunity for the Retail Federation executive.

Varney: “Do you think they are trying to buy and curry favor with the unions; a good PR move, for example.”

Here Varney is alluding to the effort by unions to get federal legislative relief to sidestep secret ballot votes in shops they try to organize.

Pfister: “…in terms of currying favor with the unions, in addition to healthcare reform, I would submit to you that the SEIU’s number one priority as well as the rest of organized labor is the card check issue, and I’m not going to suggest that there’s a quid pro quo because I think that would be fool hearty to try to cut a deal on providing healthcare coverage to ward off card check…”

Pfister’s not-so-subtle message to Wal-Mart: if you think you can stop union efforts on card check by aligning with them on healthcare, you’re fooling only yourself, at the expense of your fellow retailers. (Click on the video below to see this segment of the interview.)

While news people often ask questions that seek conflict and controversy, there are times when you can use those questions, as Pfister did, to your advantage without necessarily being the primary message sender.

CNN’s Crisis Vulnerability

Turner CEO Phil Kent








www.themediatrainers.com


In its most recent weekly online edition (January 29, 2009), Georgia-based publication Business to Business posted a “conversation” with Turner CEO Phil Kent and how he's responded to several crisis situations. One of the examples screams to me that it was preventable and that CNN leaves itself open for more of the same.

At issue, CNN’s Web-based iReport, which carries this disclaimer: “iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only stories marked ‘On CNN’ have been vetted for use in CNN news coverage.”

This policy seems counter-intuitive. Here’s a global network that employs seasoned journalists worldwide, journalists who are held responsible for accuracy and balance. Yet, this same network hosts an unedited site where anyone is free to “report” anything. Here’s what happened last October and how Kent responded to it, as reported in Business to Business Magazine:

CNN.com's new citizen journalist outlet, ironically called iReport (a name Apple might have wished they would have trademarked), reported that Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, was rushed to the hospital after suffering a severe heart attack, a report later unfounded and
untrue.

With no verification, the news quickly spread in the blogosphere, and caused Apple stock to sink to an 18th-month low before rebounding by the end of the day.

"The system worked exactly the way it was supposed to because our editors don't oversee iReport," he says. "As soon as the community that self-monitors iReport saw that this was bogus, they pulled it off."

"Would you blame the phone company for someone calling up and making a death threat on the phone line," Kent asks.

"Somebody abused our terms of service; knowingly filed a false report and we're cooperating with the SEC and the State's Attorney General to investigate whether it was deliberate stock manipulation. There was nobody here that did anything wrong."

Kent's phone company analogy doesn't work. The lack of his unmonitored, unedited "news" page would not be the end of getting news online. It simply would put some voluntary control over the veracity of the news.

How many more similar situations does CNN set itself up for? CNN is not the only one, either. Other news organizations have their own contributor access pages. And, Fox News' Ureport also provides a viewer-generated news platform.

More than a few professional journalists have expressed concerns about the Wild West nature of the Internet. In an effort to reach out to their viewers, readers and listeners, bona fide news organizations seem to be cultivating and nurturing the very beast they fear.