FAKE FRIENDS: Everything I need to know about Facebook I learned from Joan Jett

Media commentary by Steve Dunlop

LIsten to podcast version here

A lot of people have asked me over the last few years: Why aren't you on Facebook?   

The answer is because I don't want to mess with friendship.  

"You don't lose when you lose fake friends." - Joan Jett

I'm not declaring a pox on all social media.  Quite the contrary.  We were an early and enthusiastic adopter of LinkedIn, which for most professionals makes a good deal of business sense.   And I don't want to slam businesses that find Facebook a valuable tool to engage their customers.  (I'm not so sure about that value, but that's a different column.)  

I had a personal aversion to Twitter when it first hit the scene, but there is no denying that it has evolved into a quick, top-line way to communicate to your friends and colleagues in a flash.  If the original slogan had been "look what I just found out," instead of "what are you doing right now" (as if I care?),  it might have sat better with me.  

But I can't say any of these meritorious things about Facebook.  I'm not saying you'll never, ever find us there - just not in the near future. 

I don't get how anyone can "friend" thousands of people on Facebook without feeling like a bit of a charlatan.   The comedian Steve Hofstetter reportedly accumulated some 200-thousand "friends" on Facebook before the service, smelling the coffee, reduced the number of allowable "friends" to 4,999.   (How's that for housecleaning?)

You can send thousands of tweets, and accumulate thousands of business contacts, but you cannot have thousands of friends.  Friendship, says the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a relationship between two people who hold mutual affection for each other."  If you could imagine a straight line connecting two points - with casual acquaintanceship at one end and romantic love at the other - friendship would lie roughly in the middle.  

Can I really rely on thousands of people to build me up when I'm feeling down or alone?  Or count on those hordes to honor their word when I need to confide something?   Can I, in turn, live up to their expectations?   Especially when there are just so many of them? 

We live in a time when the traditional rules governing human relationships are being reevaluated, and sometimes rewritten.  Please don't mess with friendship.   It is a basic human need, based on shared outlooks, experiences, and interests.  We all need to be able to distinguish our real friends from the acquaintances, cutouts, and assorted  mirages.  

One of my favorite records from the 1980s - it was a hit, in fact, a full year before Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg was born - sums it up for me.   Maybe it will for you, too.  

SILLY SEASON: Obama’s New York visit heralds the start of the real fun - and not just for politicos

 by Steve Dunlop

Given its status as the world’s richest city, it’s little wonder that politicians from all over the country flock to New York to raise money.  ‘Twas ever thus, you might say. 

The problem is that in 2012, to run a credible campaign, politicians need more of that money than ever.  Exponentially more.  And those of us who actually live and work here are not removed from the hook by simply saying we “gave at the office.”  Politicians of high stature will make you pay, especially in a city where it is especially true that time is money.   

The point was driven home on Monday, as President Obama made his most recent campaign jaunt to Gotham: three stops in a single day, capped by a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria featuring Bill Clinton and Jon Bon Jovi. 

Obama and Clinton focused their remarks on economic opportunity.  They should know.  This single presidential trip to Manhattan raised a reported $3.6 million.   Where can I invest in that hedge fund?  

The NYPD dutifully cleared the way, with the usual escort convoys and pop-up frozen zones.   Sure, the President of the United States deserves all the security the Big Apple can muster.    But getting caught up in campaign gridlock can make even Wall Street’s masters of the universe feel like a humble speck in their own hometown. 

I was one such speck on Monday... caught unexpectedly behind a police line outside the Waldorf.  I was on my way there, not to cover the President, but to another event one floor below the  Obamagala. 

Aware that the chief executive was in town, I tried to time my arrival to avoid getting trapped.  LIke most of the people around me, I miscalculated. 

“You can’t get down there,” an officer on scene bellowed to no one in particular, as I stood at the head of a crowd on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 49th Street.  Impatient executives in wingtips and high heels tapped on their iPhones.  A few took pictures of the southbound street in front of the Waldorf, eerily devoid of traffic.      

I asked the officer if the Park Avenue entrance to the hotel was open.  “You can try,” he shrugged.  But like Lexington Avenue, 49th Street was closed off, to both traffic and pedestrians.  The quickest way to the Park Avenue side of the hotel was to go down to 48th Street, then walk over and up a block.  A few of my fellow trappees were debating doing that.  Then, in that half-despondent tone that muttering people often adopt in crowds, I heard someone say, “Don’t bother... that entrance is closed off too.”

It wasn’t long before a phalanx of Sanitation Department dump trucks, filled with sand, moved into place in front of the hotel.  My cell phone rang.  It was my photographer.  “I can’t get anywhere near you,” he reported.  “Everything’s closed off.  Are you inside yet?”

Mobile phones do have a way of distracting you from the task at hand.  When I ended the call and looked up again, the dump trucks were gone.  I didn’t think dump trucks just suddenly disappeared, like the characters in Swept Away.  Especially in gridlock.  But these, somehow, seemed to. 

The bottleneck of humanity was starting slowly to loosen.   I joined the throng headed up Lexington Avenue, and finally made my way into the Waldorf.  Once inside, there was no sign whatsoever of the President of the United States.  And that, of course, was the plan. 

Of the 100 or so fundraisers the president has appeared at in this election cycle, 21 have been in New York City.  And this one won’t be the last.  In fact, Sarah Jessica Parker is hosting a blowout for her favorite president here in town next week.  

Just remember, it’s silly season.  It can get hot in mid-June, of course, but be prepared to be frozen.

ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS: Don’t blame reporters for doing their jobs - or try to “protect” them when they do

Media commentary by Steve Dunlop

This was not a good week to be a member of the working press.  As a longtime member of that press, I’m not complaining – just stating fact.

If you were covering the sex abuse scandal at Penn State for a local TV station, you had your live truck overturned by a mob angry at the firing of Joe Paterno.  (Note to colleges: never dismiss a popular coach late at night, after your student body has already kicked back with a few beers.) 

If you were covering the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York’s Zuccotti Park, you might have found yourselves in handcuffs, rounded up right along with the protesters. 

A

student journalist is among those taken into custody by New York police as Zuccotti Park is emptied of Occupy Wall Street protesters.  
Photo by College Media Matters.

Danger is part of the job description when you’re a reporter – whether you are in Afghanistan or Brooklyn.  I’ve never been shot at or had my live truck overturned, but I have been pelted with rocks, bottles, flying glass, even sod from the infield at the old Shea Stadium.  No pun intended, but those risks come with the turf. 

But arrested?  For doing your job?  Maybe in North Korea.  But in the United States of America, that’s supposed to happen to gangsters and drug dealers, not reporters. 

If you look at the working press credential issued by the Police Department of the City of New York, you will see that the bearer “is entitled to cross police and fire lines” when covering a news event.  It also notes that the bearer “assumes all risk in case of accident.”  

“Assuming all risk in case of accident” puts a responsibility on reporters to consider their own safety when covering a story.  That’s not just to preserve life and limb, however.  It’s to keep from inadvertently becoming - by virtue of “accident” - part of the news event you are trying to cover.

That’s why when New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said reporters were blocked from Zuccotti Park “for their own safety,” it was at odds with the rules - not just the rules on the press card, but the longstanding rules of engagement between press and law enforcement in New York. 

Journalist groups such as the Deadline Club (www.deadlineclub.org), on whose board I serve, were swift in condemning this gap between official policy and the on-the-ground reality.  Just as an angry crowd is wrong to vandalize a live truck trying to cover a news event, so are law enforcers stepping over the line when they round up reporters covering a story.  In both cases, members of the press are just trying to do what they were sent out to do.

The arrests of several media representatives were subsequently voided.   They never should have been made in the first place. 

I have reported in New York for a long time, and have always had a good working relationship with law enforcement.  We respect each other’s boundaries.  That is as it ought to be.  The events in Zuccotti Park are way out of sync with my own experience.  Let’s hope they’re an aberration. 

LEMONS INTO LEMONADE: Can there really be such a thing as media crisis insurance?

Media commentary by Steve Dunlop

“I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity,” said John D. Rockefeller, a man who lived through opportunities and disasters aplenty. 

But Rockefeller (at right, in 1885) is silent on a natural follow-up question.  Disasters, by their nature, are easy to recognize.  But just how do you identify an opportunity?  

AIG thinks it sees one. The insurance giant, still bearing the scars of a 2008 disaster largely of its own making, offered a new product this week designed to provide a modicum of protection against the sort of existential media crisis that it suffered.  (Read more about it here.) 

The blogosphere saw an opportunity of its own, lighting up like a pinball machine.  “Sounds like a scam,” chortled one wag.  “I’d like to sell you some cloud insurance,” sniffed another. 

And my favorite post: “I am going to start selling ‘Embarrassment Insurance.’”  Hey, please text me when THAT is for sale.

With all its flaws, a beauty of the free market is its self-correcting nature.  There is a market for everything, until there isn’t. Build a better mousetrap that meets a genuine need, get the word out, and you’re positioned for success.  But fail to meet a need – or if the need itself disappears – and you’ll soon fail to meet payroll. 

This attempt to provide insurance for the cost of crisis communications deserves an A for originality.  But it is flawed – and not just for the widely accepted reason that media relations is an inexact science. 

A comparison with garden-variety auto insurance, with which most of us are familiar, reveals at least three significant challenges:  

1. When you have a car wreck, the best insurance companies will not tell you what tow operator to use, or what body shop must perform the repairs.  They leave that to your judgment, and perhaps set a cap on the reimbursable cost.   Here, you are being directed to specialists from just two companies.  They are both large and reputable firms.  But aren’t you, and not your insurer, in the best position to decide what sort of help you should enlist?
2. When your car is repaired, your insurance company typically signs off on the job. It certifies, in effect, that the damage was repaired, and that the vehicle is roadworthy again.  How can any such certification ever be possible in a media crisis?   And if it isn’t, just what’s the point of the insurance?
3. Public relations is (and ought to be) a free discipline, since the speech in which it deals is largely protected by the First Amendment.  Insurance, on the other hand, is a highly regulated industry.  And when insurers pay, they have a say – just as they do now in how many hours it should take your local body shop to replace a bumper.  Is the PR world ready to accept that?

The market, as it does for every product, will decide the future of AIG’s initiative.  Yet, for all its shortcomings, it is probably an opportunity - just the first of many in this area.  Look for competitors to develop versions of their own. 

And there may be an unintended side benefit.  The insurance industry’s core specialty, after all, is risk assessment.  If legions of risk evaluators are unleashed into the arena of reputation management, certain companies will inevitably be flagged as “bad reputational risks” based on their behavior - just as they are now flagged as bad credit risks.  (Wouldn’t that present a media crisis all its own?)

Anyway, three cheers for that.  Encouraging good behavior – rather than influencing perception of bad behavior – has always been the holy grail of the best PR people.  In AIG, they may just have found the unlikeliest of allies.

WHERE ARE THE NO'S OF YESTERYEAR? Why an editor’s pushback remains critical in the Internet Age

by Steve Dunlop

In 1992, when I was the newly-installed president of the New York Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, I had the privilege of introducing Don Hewitt as the speaker at our Awards Dinner.  

It was my first encounter with Hewitt.  I felt awkward and on display sitting alongside this broadcasting legend on the dais, in front of a large and important audience.  I tried to engage him with some chit-chat.  Big mistake.

“Don was utterly incapable of small talk,” CBS correspondent Morley Safer would say years later at a memorial service for Hewitt, the pioneering television producer and creator of 60 Minutes, who died in 2009. 

And his reputation as an editor was ruthless.  In Safer’s words:  “Don liked to boast that he could cut the Lord’s Prayer in half and make it better.”

Failing miserably at said small talk, I innocently asked Hewitt if he would have a look at my introduction to him.

60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt (l) with Steve Dunlop at the Deadline Club Awards in New York, 1992. 

No sooner had I produced three pages of remarks from my inside jacket pocket than Hewitt conveyed exactly what he thought - with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Too long,” he told me, loudly enough for everyone on the dais to hear.   “You gotta cut it down.  Way down.” 

Too long?  He hadn’t even read it. 

Much has changed since Don Hewitt gave me a wakeup call about brevity.   Television was supposed to spell the end of the written word.  Instead, we find ourselves in an age where more people can reach more people with more sentences than at any time in history. 

But in this brave, twittering world, where talk is cheap and words are cheaper, it seems no one thinks he needs an editor. 

Editing is so 20th century - so obsolete, you may say.  I can always change something online after I’ve posted it, you rationalize.  (Really?  Ask Anthony Weiner about that one.) 

Editors cost money.  Who has the budget to be second-guessed?  They cost time, too.  Who wants to short-circuit the constant ebb and flow of words and ideas online?  If I don’t jump on this thought before someone else does, the theory goes, it will cost me dearly in hits.

But if more people have access to your thoughts and words than ever before, wouldn’t you want more than ever to get them right? 

When I was the morning news editor at New York’s WOR Radio, another experienced newsman, Reg Laite (now Dunlop Media’s senior trainer), made the case for the existence of editors.  While reporters may strive to be objective within their own stories, Laite told me, reporters cannot be objective about their own stories.  A story is like a baby.  Its parents develop an immutable sense of pride. And that is to be expected, precisely because they are invested in having created it. 

They are unable to stand back and see the story’s holes, its flaws, its inconsistencies.  But that is precisely what a good editor does.   An editor’s job is to be critical, to ensure balance, to cut.   And when in doubt about accuracy, to send it back. 

When it comes to self-editing, Abraham Lincoln’s oft-quoted observation about lawyers comes to mind.  “He who represents himself,” Lincoln is reputed to have said, “has a fool for a client.”

So I did cut my introductory remarks for Don Hewitt down.  Way down, as he suggested – on the back of a paper napkin.   I read my scribbled version to the big man, and asked for his feedback. 

“On See It Now,” I wrote, “he helped determine what television news could become.  On 60 Minutes, he continues to define what it is.  Ladies and gentlemen, Don Hewitt.” 

“That’s good,” Hewitt said, rewarding me with a half smile.  “Go with it.” 

Coming from him, that was high praise.