Critics Question "60 Minutes" Press Release On Bode Miller
On Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a profile of skier Bode Miller. The profile showed Miller's childhood home, discussed his unorthodox style, and gave Miller the opportunity to share some of his concerns about the price of success. "The piece was awesome," said Lowell Taub, Miller's agent in New York. "It showed [Miller] is charismatic and intelligent and likeable and something that we as Americans can be proud of."
Less awesome, however, were the revelations featured in the "60 Minutes" press release about the story, at least as far as many in the skiing community are concerned. Last Thursday, the show sent out a press release headlined "60 Minutes: World Cup ski champ admits to being drunk on slopes," which begins like this:
When he competes for Olympic gold medals in Turin next month, count on World Cup champion Bode Miller to be sober because, as he tells Bob Simon, skiing drunk is too hard. He ought to know. He says he's done it before and won't promise not to do it again.Was the release accurate? It sure looks that way. The piece shows Miller prepping for a race in Switzerland the day after winning the world cup. "He wasn't as much hungover as still drunk," says Simon in voiceover. Miller had been celebrating his world cup win the night before with friends. "Talk about a hard challenge, right there. If you've ever tried to ski wasted, it's not easy," Miller says. (Miller is disputing the drinking-related portion of the story – kind of – here. He acknowleges having been out "partying super late" for the 10:00am start, but writes that he's "never drunk alcohol within hours of racing.")
Accuracy notwithstanding, however, critics like Taub are charging "60" with putting out a press release that was sensationalistic. Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden made his feelings known in a piece headlined "60 Minutes' shameful ratings grab." After writing that the press release was "a superficial cheap shot," he added:
When Miller told his story to Simon on 60 Minutes, both Bode and Simon were laughing. It was presented on the telecast as a light moment."60 Minutes" spokesman Kevin Tedesco, who wrote the press release, told me that Miller's comments about drinking were handled no differently than controversial comments normally are. "People come on '60 Minutes' and say things that are newsworthy, and we put those in a press release," he says. "We can't change what he said."It was not presented in the press release as a light moment. It was presented without context, leading anyone reading it to assume that the "drunk skiing'' episode would be the heart of the story and that it was, on balance, news. Neither of these things was true...
This is significant because the press release has had a greater impact than the televised story. The press release was seized upon by newspapers around the country and internationally. The press release made Miller a drunk skier. The televised segment made him an interesting human being, a great athlete and a person who likes to party too much. These are two very different images.
Miller, it's worth noting, is the rare well-known athlete who speaks with relatively little concern for how his words might impact him. "He was very cooperative, open, and candid with us," says Cathy Olian, who produced the piece. "Most of the time that we were with him we were with him without any handlers."
The International Ski Federation has criticized Miller for setting a bad example, and United States Ski and Snowboard Association chief Bill Marolt called his comments "unacceptable." His sponsors continue to back him. "The story was more gracious than we were expecting after hearing all the hype," said Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer. Miller is expected to make a statement, and perhaps offer an apology, later this week, according to reports.
Contrary to some reports about the incident, the press release sent out by "60 Minutes" last Thursday was not subsequently altered. On Friday, however, Olian called coordinating producer Daniel Schorn and asked him to add more information to the Web preview of the story on CBSNews.com, which was focused primarily on the alcohol-related comments in the press release. A Web preview titled "Bode Miller On Skiing Drunk" became "Gold Not Important To Bode Miller," and the focus became Miller's ambivalence about winning medals, not the alcohol-related comments, though they remained in the preview. Olian says complaints from Miller's people, which began as soon as the press release went out, were not her impetus for making the call. Schorn says he's updated other Web previews "once or twice" in recent months.
The dustup brings into focus the dividing line between "60 Minutes" public relations side and its journalistic one. "60 Minutes" has earned a reputation as a serious, fair show, one that does not traverse the same ground as, say, "A Current Affair." But press releases such as the one sent out about Miller, which play up the most controversial details of a story, necessarily have a more tabloidy feel than the stories on which they are based. That's understandable in one sense, since the point of a press release is to get people to watch: As Richard Sandomir wrote in the New York Times, "of course CBS chose the newsiest bit to push, rather than focusing on Miller's growing up without indoor plumbing." But it also risks taking some of the shine off the "60 Minutes" brand when the story presented is balanced and fair but the promotion is designed primarily to grab attention.
"There's a danger of that happening – that you pull the news out of the story and it loses its context," says "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager. "And that's not necessarily a good thing. But it was newsworthy, as is evident from how many newspapers picked it up. You put out a press release to get more people to watch. It's not as if it's not true. It's a part of the story and it's a part of his story."