Close Calls
May 31st, 2005 at 8:43 am by Susie
I was supposed to be quoted in the Wall St. Journal this morning but alas, I was left on the cutting room floor.
No, really. I got an email Friday from a reporter who wanted a quote on corporate blogs from a “real” blogger.
I questioned the credibility of corporate blogs. “People like blogs because we have strong opinions and a sense of integrity,” I said. “How much credibility do you have when ultimately, your job depends on saying nice things about your employer?” In other words, an inherent contradiction.
She asked for my background. “An investigative reporter? I always wanted to do that.”
“What’s stopping you?” I said mildly. After all, the Wall St. Journal does that sort of thing, don’t they?
She said she didn’t really know how. I told her she just had to start reading government documents. “The real story’s always in there somewhere,” I said. “Plus, you’ll be ten steps ahead of most other reporters if you do.”
“Yeah, they’re lazy,” she said.
My remarks were dropped in favor of some shiny, happy quotes saying what wonderful things corporate blogs are.
Figures - can’t upset the advertisers.
I just read the piece.
“The notion of a corporate blog is a bit of a contradiction: Some paid bloggers get a long leash, as far as the topics and tone of their postings. Stonyfield Farms’ Ms. Halvorson says her job is unsupervised. “That doesn’t mean you can give away proprietary info,” she adds.”
Well, no shit. More importantly, does it mean the writer is free to criticize the company? Was the question even asked? Sue, you spoke to the reporter, what do you think?
There’s only one voice in the story that’s a little skeptical, and it’s from a CEO, so even that’s ultimately hopeful.
Corporate blogs probably won’t be around long, because they’ll be treated by the Guys in Ties as another advertising opportunity. Therefore, the blogs will have no credibility, and people won’t read them. (How often do you actively seek out advertising? Ads work best with a captive audience — TV commercials, billboards and, increasingly, at the movies. Who’s going to go online and seek out what’s essentially a commercial?)
Sooner or later, the Ties will figure out that nobody’s reading their bullshit and, well, they’re not going to pay for invisible advertising very long. Corporate bloggers better save those paychecks.
Hard to believe that’s in the WSJ.
Then again …
I used to run a corporate blog. It was a technology blog, nothing even pretending to be controversial. Dull. It’s a gig, no worse than writing manuals.
My wife and I have a costume shop. During the Halloween season that followed 9/11, a local TV news show came by to do a story on patriotic theme costumes. They interviewed us about how many had gone out - no more than usual, there are always a few. Three sets of customers came in and were interviewed. None had considered patriotic themes, despite being asked several ways. No, they hadn’t decided not to because too many of their friends were doing it. No, not because they had any trouble finding them (right over there, by the window). They just hadn’t thought of it, and it didn’t sound fun to them.
So, of course, the piece was all about the many patritotic costumes that everybody was going to wear. They did include my wife saying she would not deal in any Bin Laden masks, because we are about fun, so she wasn’t too annoyed. But it was clear that the story had already been written and they were just looking for pictures and maybe a sound bite.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. The administration doesn’t.
Ah, the “friendly reporter” ploy. Make the interviewee feel good about the interview, sympathize, and fawn. Then hang up the phone and think to yourself “I hope they liked me” all the while figuring out how your going to keep their disonant quote out of an otherwise harmonious story.
The interviewer always wanted to be an investigative reporter? Right. If I really believed that, I’d suggest trying being a real reporter first. But then, I’m too cynical to fall for a bulls* line like that.
Been in the biz too long.
“Yeah, they’re lazy,�
translation: I’m too lazy.