Read a version of this post on the Huffington Post
Washington Post columnist Jeffrey Birnbaum has his panties in a twist again about the practice of public policy advocates employing professional writers to help them draft newspaper op-eds. As a writer who specializes in just this niche I have an objection to his objection, and you should too.
Just ask yourself—do you really want to read op-eds whose every word is written by lawyers, scientists and Henry Kissinger? Is Senator McConnell as good a writer as Salman Rushdie? When you see a politician’s or celebrity’s byline on a newspaper page, do you believe they wrote it all by themselves?
Of course not. But the Washington Post apparently believes something different.
A few months ago, Jeffrey Birnbaum wrote a pair of articles that “outed” a PR campaign which included a “white paper” circulating on Capitol Hill making the case for Congressional earmarks, and also an op-ed in the Washington Post “written” by three big-city mayors. He must have imagined a scene out of the Dick Van Dyke show, where the mayors stood around a computer, chomping on cigars and arguing over participles, but then was disappointed to find the hidden hand of a PR firm.
“Soon after my column on the paper ran last week,” Birnbaum wrote last May, “the company's president, W. Roger Gwinn, phoned to admit that his firm's seven-person budget and appropriations policy team wrote it -- initially to explain to clients why they tended to get more money from congressional earmarks than from federal agencies left to their own devices. It was later distributed to lobbyists and congressional staffers.
That's when it became famous as a bold defense for the much-maligned earmarking process.
The document's facts were used in an op-ed piece praising earmarks that appeared under the names of mayors of three cities represented by the Ferguson Group. The firm had a hand in placing that op-ed in the Washington Post, though it initially denied any involvement.”
Now, Birnbaum is at it again. In a recent column headlined, “The Man Behind the Byline Isn't Behind the Article. So, Who Is?” Jeffrey Birnbaum revisits the shocking practice of ghostwriting. Reading between the lines, you can see how the machinery of government, journalism and public relations really works.
“Charles Steele Jr. is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a very prominent fellow. Two of his distinguished predecessors were Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy, leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.”
Right off the bat, Birnbaum is setting the stage for a swipe at this subject’s intergrity. The implication is the Martin Luther King and Ralph David Abernathy would never compromise their integrity—so who is this Steele guy anyway?
This week, the SCLC is celebrating its 50th anniversary at a convention in New Orleans.
More scene-setting—Birnbaum wants readers to imagine themselves at the 50th anniversary celebrations, imbued with a sense of history and noble purpose. Get ready for one of those Monty Python-style giant anvils to fall!
Steele is upset about something that happened before the celebration. A handful of Southern newspapers published an op-ed article under Steele's name on July 18 that his lawyer and the SCLC say he did not write or authorize.
The commentary criticized pending federal legislation that would reduce credit card fees and suggested that retailers stand to profit from it. The measure has been the subject of a long-standing feud between retailers, which want to limit the fees, and credit card companies, which don't.
OK, here’s some actual news. The author of an article denounces it after publication. Kind of like when Tom DeLay denied writing a passage in his own book about a fellow Republican attack dog, leading some to wonder not only if DeLay had actually written the book, but if he’d even read it.
The episode opens a small window onto an open secret of lobbying. Public relations firms regularly solicit authors of opinion-page articles, draft the pieces for them and place the articles in publications where they will have the most impact -- all for a fee.
Those last three words stick in my craw—“for a fee.” As if the minute filthy lucre is involved, integrity, truth and inherent value go out the window. By extension, I suppose, newspapers should stop paying the nominal fees they offer op-ed writers (which are not much more than what Calvin Trillin called, describing his payments from editor Victor Navasky, as being in "the high two figures") and PR firms should work for free.
But it’s another clause in that graf that describes the real issue here, although Birnbaum himself doesn’t seem to realize it. Problems arise not when writers get involved, but when agencies “place the articles in publications.” I think there’s a difference between a writer working with an author on a newspaper-worthy article, and a PR agency submitting that piece on its own letterhead. I advise my clients to submit op-eds themselves, from their personal e-mail accounts. This practice may deprive PR firms from bragging rights to “deliverables” when justifying their fees, but I think it preserves the integrity of the relationship between author and reader.
In this case, it could have saved SCLC a lot of embarrassment, and perhaps some people their jobs. Consider this anatomy of a cover-up:
Walker said in an interview last week that he thinks the K Street public relations shop LMG was behind the article in some way, and that he has been in contact with the firm. "I believe LMG played a role in this scenario; I can't say how big a role," he said. "LMG is in that chain somewhere."
LMG is working for a group of lobbyists for banks, credit card companies and others with similar views called the Electronic Payments Coalition. The firm would say only that it was tangentially involved. A spokesman said yesterday that LMG "reached out through its contractors" to provide "advocacy materials" to the SCLC and "urged the group to go public with opposition to the bill."
This doesn’t pass the smell test. A PR firm gets involved in drafting an op-ed, but the office of the article’s author isn’t sure how deeply? Maybe there’s deniability at the top of the chain, but surely the communications staff knew who they were talking to.
Dexter M. Wimbish, SCLC general counsel, played down LMG's role in the matter. "Based on our investigation, we don't see a reason to release a statement about LMG at this point," he said an interview yesterday. "LMG at this point has not been determined to be the entity that placed the op-ed."
What exactly is the “entity” involved? Probably someone like me, who was hired by LMG to write something that they could take credit for, mark up four or five times and hang on their wall. This becomes clear in Birnbaum’s next graf. (And by the way, Dexter M. Wimbish? Wasn't that a character in a W.C. Fields movie?)
Clearly, though, an outsider helped produce the article. "We have discovered that the op-ed that ran apparently was a draft . . . that had not been authorized by the president. That draft should not have gone out," Wimbish said. "The draft came from a third-party contractor and never got to the organization, and that's where the breakdown in communication took place. We're trying to determine who gave the authority to publish the draft."
So the writer submitted something to the agency, which presumably showed it someone at the client (but to preserve deniability, not the CEO) and then had it submitted by someone else? Laughable. But the real howler in this article comes in the last graf, thus giving Birnbaum a showcase example of “burying the lede.” He quotes the SCLC lawyer:
"Upon final review, we have discovered that the wrong draft of the op-ed was incorrectly submitted. The correct draft should not have referenced Wal-Mart or Home Depot," he said. "Any previous statements on this matter by SCLC or anyone associated with SCLC or President Steele on this issue are hereby moot," he added.
The “wrong draft of the op-ed was incorrectly submitted?” Oh sure, that's what they say now, but what they really mean is, "we were too dumb to realize the mistake we made at the time." Lesson learned: think before you click "send." (And wait until Jeffrey Birnbaum is on vacation).
I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
Posted by: Coach Factory | Monday, 27 June 2024 at 08:43 PM