Who Will Control The Messenger?
A spokesperson for Florida CFO Tom Gallagher is in a little hot water today for recording her boss' conversation with a reporter, but the incident helps remind us of the increasing changes taking place in who holds the power in press-subject relationships. Tami Torres, a press aide for Gallagher (who is a candidate for governor), taped a phone conversation between her boss and a report for the Miami Herald. She did so illegally because Florida law states that both parties must be informed that the conversation is being taped and she told neither.
Torres, by all reckoning, won't face any legal action for her presumably illegal act but let's take a look at the bigger picture here. Most press secretaries and PR representatives are very familiar with how to operate a digital or mini-tape audio recorder. Go to any press conference or briefing and at least one of those recording devices thrust in front of the speaker or scattered on the lectern belongs to them. Sometimes one of the video cameras does as well. After all, they want a record of what was asked and said too.
Increasingly, however, the ease and ability of public figures and institutions to produce their own version of events is threatening the traditional way they do business with the press. For as long as television news has existed, the reporters, producers, cameramen, sound technicians and editors who put together the on-air products have held a tremendous amount of power. They shape stories with elements of their choosing, select the soundbites they feel fit those stories and make them look the way they want.
But, as Katherine Seelye wrote in The New York Times last week, that's rapidly changing:
"Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word.And not only is the ability to shape the story increasingly in the hands of the subjects, so is the power to make demands. Take for example, a presidential campaign. The relationship between a campaign and the press is a delicate dance in many respects. There are times – during the primary season, for example – when the campaign needs the media to spread its message. They'll agree to a lot in order to get exposure on a highly-rated television news show because they need it.The Internet, and especially the amplifying power of blogs, is changing that. Unhappy subjects discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose what they perceived as a journalist's bias or wrongheaded narration.
But now they are going a step further. Subjects of newspaper articles and news broadcasts now fight back with the same methods reporters use to generate articles and broadcasts -- taping interviews, gathering e-mail exchanges, taking notes on phone conversations -- and publish them on their own Web sites. This new weapon in the media wars is shifting the center of gravity in the way that news is gathered and presented, and it carries implications for the future of journalism."
Later on, however, the power shifts toward the campaign. Presidential nominees have most all the name recognition they'll need and they're guaranteed to get almost daily coverage from that point on. What they want is the ability to control their message. Appearances on hard news programs become scarce, if not non-existent. Now, they have the power.
But what would happen to this relationship if press shops and politicians began to insist on certain conditions for any interview they did, at any time for any reason? What if the primary condition they requested was the ability to independently record the interview and the freedom to use it as they wanted? What if, suddenly, interviews that may be edited for a broadcast – either as a feature or part of a larger package – started showing up in full on the candidate's Web site or other sites? What if that became common practice for any public figure, corporate president or institution? How would that change the way in which the media operates?
It's an issue that we'll continue to look at, but for the moment, there aren't any easy answers. At the very least, those who used to be powerless subjects of the media's attention are gaining the tools and ability to create their own narratives. And that can't help but result in dramatic changes for both sides of this equation.