Media management. A bittersweet, elegiac tone permeates Kurt Eichenwald's extended interview with Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay, which appeared on A1 yesterday below the fold:

There was a time when Kenneth L. Lay's close relationship with President Bush brought him power and influence in Washington that was virtually unparalleled among his colleagues in corporate America.

Now, Mr. Lay, the former chairman and chief executive of Enron, fears those ties may only serve to bring him criminal charges. ...

The interview was conducted in Mr. Lay's office in downtown Houston. There, a picture window frames the old Enron skyscraper across town, a sight he said he rarely contemplates during his days working as a consultant for two start-up companies.

"Crimes of Others Wrecked Enron, Ex-Chief Says"

Tough not to get choked up seeing that old Enron skyscraper framed forlornly in Lay's picture window. Even tougher not to get choked up hearing that Kenny Boy, who was worth "in excess of $400 million" at the start of 2001, "almost all of it in Enron stock," has suffered such a "stunning" reversal that he can now claim less than $20 million in assets—and not even a million in cash on hand, what with the money he has to set aside for legal fees and debt repayment. Jesus, the man doesn't even know where his next four-star meal is coming from!

Eichenwald calls this Lay's "first unrestricted interview since the [Enron] collapse," which would make it something of a coup, I suppose. Eichenwald's protective attitude toward Lay—who is himself "unrestricted" here, in the sense of his version of things begin given full rein, with nary a hint of corrective or critical balance—would suggest that he certainly thinks it's a coup, anyway. Eichenwald may not have had to agree to limit his questions in advance of the interview, but the published article suggests he was more than willing on his own account not to upset the apple cart with any rude questions, or any untoward reminder of all the people Enron managed to fuck over. Call it the self-censorship of opportunism.

The Times' Lay interview is a fine example of the routine dishonesties that all concerned regard as just a cost of doing business in the managed-media era. Here's how Eichenwald presents the occasion of the interview:

Now, on the eve of what may be the government's final decision on whether to charge him with a crime, Mr. Lay is talking for the first time about the company's collapse in 2001 and the scandal that enveloped it. In more than six hours of interviews with The New York Times, Mr. Lay remained steadfast in his expressions of innocence, even as he acknowledged, as head of the company, accountability for the debacle rests rightfully with him. ...

Mr. Lay said that he had remained silent on the advice of lawyers, but is coming forward now to explain his views of a story that he says has become infused with myths. While not saying so explicitly, he suggested that he was motivated by a desire to tell his side both to the prosecutors on the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force who have been investigating him and the citizens of Houston who may well sit in judgment on him.

I work at a marketing/communications firm, and while I'm rather on the periphery (being a Web software developer), I've learned a thing or two in these last couple of years about how PR and media management works. And though I can't rely on evidence, just gauging the odds lets me confidently fill in certain relevant portions of the background that Eichenwald is studiously obscuring:

• "Today, he says his worth is below $20 million ..." Ken Lay is far too rich, and too significant a Republican player, not to have retained PR services along with legal counsel. Rich, connected guy facing a potential show trial? This is Martha Stewart territory we're in, even if the personal-fortune numbers are substantially smaller in Lay's case.
• "The interview was conducted in Mr. Lay's office in downtown Houston." And Kurt Eichenwald was at no point alone in that office with Ken Lay, though he's happy to allow you to think he was. Eichenwald may have been formally "unrestricted" in the questions he could ask: but no attorney in the world, and no media minder, would have allowed the interview to take place in their absence. Lay was advised throughout those six hours Eichenwald proudly totes up, his people ready to foreclose any inconveniently developing directions, as sure as if he'd been testifying before Congress.
• "Mr. Lay is talking for the first time ..." Well, if by "talking" you mean "repeating carefully fabricated and well rehearsed story points in the presence of minders," and if by "first time" you mean "first time in front of somebody not on the Ken Lay payroll," then sure. Lay has had some no doubt high-priced PR talent working for months to craft a set of palatable and exculpatory messages for him (e.g., that prosecution in his case is a matter of "20-20 hindsight"): think there was ever any danger of his going off them?
• "Mr. Lay is coming forward now to explain his views." Bullshit. BULLSHIT. Ken Lay has not "come forward," as if he'd somehow approached Eichenwald himself, much less because he was simply "motivated" by a desire to "tell his side." Neither he nor Eichenwald is an independent agent in this—again, much as Eichenwald would like you to think otherwise. Lay's interview will have been the subject of extended negotiations between Lay's media people and either Eichenwald's editors, or more likely Eichenwald himself, who will have been vetted by the media wranglers from a series of possible press targets.

Not telling readers these sorts of things is a standard part of the game of celebrity journalism—which, despite Kurt Eichenwald's impressive credentials as an investigative financial reporter, is exactly the game he's playing here. No doubt many readers are aware of the atmosphere of moral and professional compromise within which puff-piece interviews like this are conducted, and adjust their expectations accordingly—but many presumably aren't, and thus can't. On the evidence of this interview, the Times doesn't feel that it owes those readers any education on the subject.

A1 placement in the Sunday New York Times is a PR gold standard; Ken Lay's media people are definitely earning their bones. It's a transaction that works for all concerned: Ken Lay gets to peddle his story in an enormously influential venue, with a tacitly understood guarantee of sympathy; having the interview conducted by someone with a reputation as a ferreter-out of financial shenanigans is an especially fine PR touch, lending as it does an extra sheen of credibility to the proceedings. And Eichenwald, who's hawked his reporting in two previous books, including a volume about corruption at Archer Daniels Midland, gets a plum interview and, who knows, a leg up on his next shattering corporate exposé. [I haven't read either of Eichenwald's books, and am not expressing an opinion as to their worth.] And who's harmed, except the poor suckers who think the front page of the Times isn't for sale?

posted by michael  7:26:41 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

A sense of occasion. Via Maureen Dowd yesterday, whose column took Dick Cheney's family-unfriendly outburst on the Senate floor last week as its subject, an interesting addendum to my Friday post:

Mr. Cheney's foul outburst was not as bad as his foul reasoning. On Fox, he again belabored his obsession with "links" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Exhibiting WASP chutzpah, this time he used The Times to bolster his faux case.

But the Thom Shanker story he cited said only that in the mid-1990's, Iraq agreed to rebroadcast anti-Saudi propaganda and that a request from Osama "to begin joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia went unanswered."

Rebroadcast anti-Saudi propaganda? As a threat to U.S. security, that's right up there with Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

A reminder, I guess, that the Devil can cite scripture to his own ends.

Commenting on the Thom Shanker article, and how it played, reader woid says

I had the same reaction you did to this story's headline ["Iraqis, Seeking Foes of Saudis, Contacted bin Laden, File Says"]. I assumed it was the Times AGAIN featuring Bush spin on A1, while burying the day's damage on page 17. Unlike you, I DIDN'T read the article. I might have gotten back to it later. But until I saw your post, I had no idea the story was skeptical of the party line. But here's the point. How many people NEVER get past the A1 headlines? (Or maybe the News Summary...) One of the worst things about the Times writing style is that they often let the lead sink to the bottom of the story. You have to wade through paragraphs of on-the-other-hands before you get to the telling fact. This story is one of those examples. Lots of people don't wade that far, and why would they? So they're left with the message of the misleading headline and the mealy-mouthed "lead" which shouldn't have been the lead at all. The medium IS the message, and the way the Times presents the headline and the opening grafs of a story is just as big a deal as the delayed, subtle nuances - which are called nuances because people not attuned to nuance won't notice them. That's a LOT of people, judging from Bush's continuing lack of collapse in the polls.

Strictly speaking, I don't think Shanker's story buried the lead—I think Shanker wrote an extremely careful but accurate lead, and I have no particular problem with a style of news writing that demands thoughtful attention from a reader. (I'd like to see a lot more of that sort of writing in the Times, actually.) What Shanker buried—or not buried so much as never stated forthrightly—was the implication of his story, its news occasion, namely that yet another prop was being knocked out from under the flimsy Administration claim that real, operationally significant links could be established between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda.

And woid's general point is well taken. I don't imagine that Dick Cheney was unaware of the substance of Shanker's article, or didn't recognize that it told against him—but he's an inveterate liar, and a canny propagandist. (It ain't just chutzpah, Maureen.) For Cheney, what the story said was unimportant; the story has weight, and utility, only in its occasional aspect. And as occasion—in the combination of its A1 placement, a wrong-way headline, and the writer's excessive circumspection, his unwillingness to state fearlessly the real significance of his report—the article is an utter failure. Cheney citing it on his own behalf is testimony to that fact. The Times remains afflicted with a consitutional timidity towards this Administration. It's not enough to document the lies; the documenting may be useful for the record, but if the lies aren't challenged, if the paper refuses to acknowledge and foreground the politics of a piece like Shanker's, then to all intents they're still just playing with Dick Cheney's loaded dice.

posted by michael  11:04:51 AM  
tell me about it []