It's a PR flak's job not to stop trying, so you can't fault that person for persistently bugging a reporter to the brink of insanity. As a result, one previously unknown motivational speaker who would have had a limited turn-out for his speech just scored a bonanza of free publicity and cast a massive PC guilt trip over all the liberals in town. If you don't come to his speech now, the verbal terrorists have won. From a PR point of view, that flak is a genius.
But who are we kidding? People say disparaging things about others in the privacy of their work groups, especially under stress, extreme aggravation, or just to be funny. Who gets more publicly insulted than overweight people? What comedian hasn't let slip a joke about the governor of New York's visual disability? Who hasn't "The Family Guy" insulted? Yes, it's part of the culture. Tasteful and polite we're not. So why did a local reporter get axed today?
On the local level, when you're in a sensitive official position, you have to know better than to put an unPC insult in writing. Then there's the nightmare of hitting the REPLY button on the email instead of FORWARD. This isn't the first time email technology has resulted in dire consequences. What happened was, the reporter thought he was forwarding an email from the flak to his editor, adding a note that the flak was a super annoying person in unflattering language. The flak, a minority, promptly went to the publisher and expressed outrage, and the firing was instant.
A decade ago, I professionally competed against the reporter in question. This behavior wasn't out of character. He's had similar dust-ups at other jobs. Those of us who travel in the same circles have heard about them. It is part of what makes him good at what he does, actually. He's an aggressive reporter. But journalism in Richmond has historically been a bow tie profession for gentlemen. There's no other explanation for why the premiere investigative reporter in the area was allowed to leave the city's only daily newspaper, and no one with the same skill set has ever taken his place there.
I have no doubt his paper flogged him for brash behavior, loose talk, chronically missing deadlines, or being less than tactful with sources in order to squeeze info out of them. Still, he advanced to the next level, the daily Times-Dispatch with its grim, humorless copy desk, I knew there was no way his rambunctious style would survive intact. Predictably, his bylined stories there were indistinguishable from any other reporter's. The copy desk was earning its salary distilling him.
From there he went to a county public information office -- obviously not a good fit. It wasn't long before he turned up at an arts and culture weekly as an investigative journalist. I suspect they were hoping someone else would show up to fill the position, but it's not easy finding a writer who can produce hard-hitting investigative journalism and still be a nonabrasive person who never causes the publisher one moment of embarrassment. Plus, if your rough copy needs editing for style and structure, turning it in late all the time makes your immediate editor hate the day you were born on a regular basis.
So, when a good excuse to part company appears out of the blue, the employer grabs it, even though with such a small writing staff, it's going to hurt. A lot. Management could have offered a rote apology to the offended party and then circled the wagons around their star employee. When the wagons don't circle, you know there's more to it. It never makes sense to outsiders. You have to know all the unrelated deep background. Sometimes a boss throws a protective shield over you, and sometimes they let you twist in the wind, regardless of the transgression. This was just the final straw on a totally different haystack.
There will be a lot of public dialogue in the coming days about whether the punishment fit the crime, our culture and our social boundaries -- and that's what the PR flack wants you to think this was about, as well as buy a ticket to hear his client -- but the fact is, that's not even what this was about.
5 comments:
Unnecessary dig at Holmberg, he's a reporter I'll follow across networks. Point was made before denigrating fellow journalists, He'll land on his feet as you will.
Anon1: There was no dig at Holmberg. Saying he wasn't the type to meet deadlines is not necessarily critical, but it doesn't endear you to your editor, so if you create a controversy at your paper, an editor who is annoyed with you already because of your work habits is going to be LESS likely to come to your defense and protect you, even if you are a star.
Anon2: Dovi with a D, and I sort of felt it was a defense, as in, some people management will defend when they do even worse things, so there was something else involved in this case. The punishment didn't fit the crime.
This blog doesn't have anything to do with the Music Journal, which barely exists anymore.
Good post.
I don't live in your area, but I've been a reporter for newspapers and magazines for years.
Who doesn't appreciate a reporter that's rough around the edges; those are some of the very qualities that make them burn with a good story.
To me, it seems painfully obvious that the newspaper threw one of their very best (and one of your community's great assets) under the bus. How sad that the editors didn't have the courage to stand up for the reporter and for their own profession.
When Silvestri took over the T-D and installed what's-his-name as the executive editor, the unofficial motto of the newsroom became "Characters Will Not Be Tolerated." Now it's more like "Anyone With A Pulse Will Not Be Tolerated." Can't speak for Style but it sounds similar.
Post a Comment