Getting invited
17/12/07 23:53 Filed in: Media
At a
recent press conference, I watched a syndrome that my friend Lennox
Grant has been discussing with me for months now, the process of
asking answers, posing questions that are answered by already
programmed by their hosts. It's as if the only source of
questioning was the briefing material supplied for the press
conference.
Even worse, fuzzy answers were being offered without question.
A statement like "we are contributors to this worthy project" was being accepted with no cross examination as to quantity or duration.
In fact, several of the journalists were posing these facile questions with such grace and poise it seemed that they were rehearsing for life on the other end of the microphone rather than pursuing an active career in journalism.
Of course, Lenny is the guy who was pilloried for daring to press questioning on former President of the Republic, Sir Ellis Clarke when he offered information about a new draft constitution for Trinidad and Tobago. His challenging line of questioning was seen as impolite, rather than required.
So segue from that to the big event of the season, the media Christmas party.
I'm not on anybody's hotlists for Christmas parties.
After more than 30 years in and out of the media, I've managed to be the guy that nobody thinks of when it's time to reward the members of the press for their work during the year.
Even on my beat, technology, a public relations person managed to uninvite me to a Christmas party hosted by the local association of technology professionals.
I've always chosen to wear this wholesale disinterest in my company as a badge of honour, but there's a part of me, the Mark who was always jealous of the popular limes at school that just doesn't understand.
It's a social thing, really, since I have a powerful distaste for the whole Christmas season, haven't been able to drink booze for almost a decade now and I've never been interested in mass produced food that you need to line up for. So there isn't much lost on someone who isn't really in the market for the what's being offered at these events.
The rational part of me is pretty clear that an invitation to a media lime is a bazaar. Something is being offered for sale, and something is being bought.
Rationally, companies don't spend money unless there is an expectation of return and the only thing that media practitioners have for sale is the quality and integrity of their reporting. The reward, apparently, for being helpful to companies in their quest for success, is an invite. I have to assume that the punishment for failing to be helpful is not being invited.
This was driven home to me a few years ago when the current Editor in Chief of the Guardian, Anthony Wilson, was "uninvited" to the Unit Trust's Christmas party, one of the big events of the season. This followed on a year's worth of, shall we say, differences of opinion between the then Business Editor of the paper and the executive of the UTC.
The Business Desk then proceeded to boycott the event, but the rest of the invited Guardian employees went, to the best of my knowledge.
Good Christmas parties are hard to resist, evidently.
But the brutal bottom line of the whole situation is this.
Is the pact we have with our readers and viewers worth the lack of judgement that an evening of drinks and food might buy? I have no doubt that seasoned veterans of the business are pretty cool with the whole arrangement, having long found a balance that they are comfortable with between freeness and responsibility.
Unfortunately, the media isn't made up of elders or seasoned veterans anymore, the majority of media practitioners are young, impressionable children who don't plan to stick around for very long.
While they are with us, they deserve to be properly briefed about what's really happening when those clever invitations appear on their desks.
Even worse, fuzzy answers were being offered without question.
A statement like "we are contributors to this worthy project" was being accepted with no cross examination as to quantity or duration.
In fact, several of the journalists were posing these facile questions with such grace and poise it seemed that they were rehearsing for life on the other end of the microphone rather than pursuing an active career in journalism.
Of course, Lenny is the guy who was pilloried for daring to press questioning on former President of the Republic, Sir Ellis Clarke when he offered information about a new draft constitution for Trinidad and Tobago. His challenging line of questioning was seen as impolite, rather than required.
So segue from that to the big event of the season, the media Christmas party.
I'm not on anybody's hotlists for Christmas parties.
After more than 30 years in and out of the media, I've managed to be the guy that nobody thinks of when it's time to reward the members of the press for their work during the year.
Even on my beat, technology, a public relations person managed to uninvite me to a Christmas party hosted by the local association of technology professionals.
I've always chosen to wear this wholesale disinterest in my company as a badge of honour, but there's a part of me, the Mark who was always jealous of the popular limes at school that just doesn't understand.
It's a social thing, really, since I have a powerful distaste for the whole Christmas season, haven't been able to drink booze for almost a decade now and I've never been interested in mass produced food that you need to line up for. So there isn't much lost on someone who isn't really in the market for the what's being offered at these events.
The rational part of me is pretty clear that an invitation to a media lime is a bazaar. Something is being offered for sale, and something is being bought.
Rationally, companies don't spend money unless there is an expectation of return and the only thing that media practitioners have for sale is the quality and integrity of their reporting. The reward, apparently, for being helpful to companies in their quest for success, is an invite. I have to assume that the punishment for failing to be helpful is not being invited.
This was driven home to me a few years ago when the current Editor in Chief of the Guardian, Anthony Wilson, was "uninvited" to the Unit Trust's Christmas party, one of the big events of the season. This followed on a year's worth of, shall we say, differences of opinion between the then Business Editor of the paper and the executive of the UTC.
The Business Desk then proceeded to boycott the event, but the rest of the invited Guardian employees went, to the best of my knowledge.
Good Christmas parties are hard to resist, evidently.
But the brutal bottom line of the whole situation is this.
Is the pact we have with our readers and viewers worth the lack of judgement that an evening of drinks and food might buy? I have no doubt that seasoned veterans of the business are pretty cool with the whole arrangement, having long found a balance that they are comfortable with between freeness and responsibility.
Unfortunately, the media isn't made up of elders or seasoned veterans anymore, the majority of media practitioners are young, impressionable children who don't plan to stick around for very long.
While they are with us, they deserve to be properly briefed about what's really happening when those clever invitations appear on their desks.
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