Old media still in the driver's seat -- but man, does it go fast now
There is a great article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer describing how offhand comments to a Rolling Stone reporter led to the firing of General Stanley A. McChrystal as top Afghan commander days before the publication even hit the newsstands. From the perspective of a PR counselor, the speed at which the story broke and the depth of negative reaction were simply breathtaking.
A key point for me is that the scenario was driven primarily by traditional, old-school reporting (even if a publication with a semi-clothed Lady Gaga on the cover isn't exactly "traditional.") According to the Inquirer's detailed blow-by-blow, the PR chief for Rolling Stone leaked the story early to an AP reporter, who published an online version focused on one aspect of the Rolling Stone coverage, the bad blood between McChrystal and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign-affairs correspondent, Tweeted about the Eikenberry flap and the race was on.
Many of Mitchell's 9,695 Twitter followers apparently have vast networks of their own, such as Politico's Laura Rozen, whose articles and blogs made clear that story lead all the way to the White House. By Monday night, the evening news was all over the story and pundits were already debating whether or not firing McChrystal was Obama's only choice. When news travels this fast, if there even such a thing as a news cycle?
By early Tuesday morning, TIME magazine and Politico had published the full text of the Rolling Stone story online. Ironically, Rolling Stone didn't publish the story on its own site until 11:00 a.m. -- and of course the actual issue had yet to hit the newsstands. Rolling Stone has been criticized -- even ridiculed -- for its glacial approach to online publishing. But let's not forget that they broke the story in the first place. For all its sound and fury, new media only speeded and amplified a story that arose from the most old-fashioned of gumshoe reporting. Those anxious to pronounce Old Media dead would be wise to rethink that conclusion.
I'm still waiting for an explanation for why McChrystal would share his true feelings about the President and top officials with reporters. Did he think they wouldn't write about it? Did he believe he had an agreement that such information was given strictly on background? Did he accidentally sit on a hypodermic full of sodium pentathol?
But there is no mystery to the lightning-fast process by which politically "hot" comments can produce career-changing results. It may take decades to build a political or military career. But nowadays it's clear you can burn it down in just a few hours.
Comments
Rule #3 of Media Training: nothing's ever truly "on background" or "off the record"
You're right, social media amplified the situation, but McChrystal was sharing his original comments with a print reporter, not a blogger or Twitter user.
I think he accidentally sat on the hypodermic full of sodium pentathol. :)
Very well written post. You are definitely right about how quickly word can spread with the power of blogs and social media resources. There are stories out there today about people saying something inappropriate in an email at work and only hours later finding themselves fired because of how fast word spread. This definitely highlights the highs and lows of social media and Web 2.0 abilities.
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