Mr. Media Training

CNN is yet again being criticized for misreporting a major news story.

This time, the network claimed that a suspect had been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing. After the FBI issued a stern rebuke, the occasional news network backed away from the story. (Others got the story wrong as well, but CNN’s mistakes were made with particular panache.)

BuzzFeed did a wonderful job of capturing CNN’s awful hour of reporting here.

Below are a few other high-profile examples of mainstream media outlets getting a major story wrong. 

In December 2012, after the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, many news outlets wrongly identified the shooter as Adam Lanza’s brother, Ryan. Lanza’s mother was also widely reported to have been a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School; she wasn’t. Many news outlets also misreported the type of gun used in the attack.

In June 2012, both CNN and the Fox News Channel misreported the Supreme Court’s decision regarding President Obama’s health care law, as the screenshots below show.

In 2011, many news organizations misreported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died. According to Poynter.org:

“Organizations such as NPR, Reuters, Fox News, CBS, CNN and the Huffington Post sent out tweets or distributed other reports declaring Giffords dead. The New York Times’ website briefly reported her dead as well.”

In 2004, The New York Post splashed John Kerry’s Vice Presidential choice on its front page: “Dem picks (Dick) Gephardt,” blared the headline. Except he didn’t. John Edwards got the nod.

In 2000, CNN reported that Al Gore had won Florida.

In 1981, President Reagan’s spokesperson, James Brady, was declared dead by news networks after being hit by one of John Hinkley’s bullets. He’s still alive.

Remember President Thomas E. Dewey? In 1948, The Chicago Tribune named him the winner of the presidential election. He wasn’t. Harry Truman was elected to a full term.

These are just a few examples – the list of incorrect media stories could include hundreds of others.

I think it’s reasonable to conclude that breaking news coverage is broken. I no longer trust the first wave of reporting on the cable news channels. In the rush to be first, they too often blow the story, or at least critical parts of the story.

We should be skeptical when reporters rely upon the wording “sources said.” Yes, anonymous sources are often reliable. But as we’ve seen from these high-profile examples, they’re too often wrong. And we, as viewers, have no way of determining the credibility of those anonymous sources. That has always been so, but in light of these major and recurring mistakes, it’s more so now than ever before.

From now on, I’m inclined to wait until law enforcement officials confirm stories publicly before fully believing them. You probably should too.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

As we close out the first half of 2012, I’m happy to report that public figures didn’t let us down.

As usual, they committed a series of gaffes ranging from the bizarre…to the rude…to the downright cringeworthy.

So without any further ado, here’s this month’s collection, featuring a deceased spouse, some bad reporting, and an aggressive heckler.

And if you missed the ten worst media disasters of 2011, click here to catch up.

5. Hey, Martin Short: How’s Your Dead Wife Doing?

Today Show host Kathie Lee Gifford committed an embarrassing gaffe when she asked comic Martin Short how his wife was doing. The problem? Mr. Short’s wife, Nancy, died two years ago.

Two things are noteworthy about this gaffe. First, Ms. Giffords’ question suggested a more intimate friendship with the Shorts than she clearly had. Second, note Mr. Short’s incredibly graceful reaction. His poise during an uncomfortable moment only made him look better. 

Note: Although this occurred at the end of May, it missed the deadline for last month’s list.

4. CNN and Fox News Blow Supreme Court Call

In their zeal to report the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law, two of the biggest cable news channels blew the story. Both incorrectly reported that the individual mandate was dead.

Given the history of blown media calls—which include “Gabrielle Giffords dead,” “Gore wins Florida,” and “Dewey beats Truman,” you’d think the networks would know better than to rush information to air.

3. British Member of Parliament Gets Pummeled By Interviewer

This was a classic interview with an “out of the loop” spokesperson.

Chloe Smith is a young (30-year-old) conservative member of the British Parliament who serves as the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. When she appeared on Jeremy Paxman’s Newsnight to discuss the decision to delay a planned increase in fuel taxes, she failed to answer even the most direct questions.

Many of Ms. Smith’s colleagues in Parliament were furious that her boss who made the decision, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, sent her to do the show instead of doing it himself. Cover your eyes when you watch this one.

h/t @simonbriault

2. Blogger Heckles President Obama’s Immigration Speech

Neil Munro, a blogger for Tucker Carlson’s conservative website The Daily Caller, heckled President Obama during his immigration speech by shouting a confrontational question at him: “Why are you favoring immigrant workers over Americans?”  

Mr. Munro later claimed that he thought the President was finished with his statement and simply mistimed his question. But no other reporters were similarly confused, and some said afterwards that it was clear the President was in mid-speech.

Tucker Carlson (with whom I worked at CNN and personally like) also belongs on this list for offering a spirited defense of Munro’s uncivilized behavior.

1. President Obama Says The Private Sector Is “Doing Fine”

While speaking about the economy at a press conference earlier this month, President Obama said, “The private sector is doing fine.” By some measurements, that may be true. But by making such a declarative statement, he handed his opponents a perfect opportunity to label him as “out of touch.” Hours later, he walked his comment back.

His gaffe was reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s “I like being able to fire people” gaffe. Neither sentence will likely determine the outcome of November’s election. But expect to see Republicans use President Obama’s gaffe against him—and probably with some success— in hundreds of ads this fall.

Bonus Video 1: Candidate Covers His Bases…In an Unusual Way

One week before the Supreme Court issued its verdict on “Obamacare,” Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock pre-taped his response to the outcome.

Of course, he didn’t know what the outcome would be, so he pre-taped a response for four different options. That may not be terribly unusual – but the fact that all four videos made their way onto the web was.

Here’s Stephen Colbert’s rather hilarious take.

Bonus Video 2: Honeywell Security Rips Microphone Away From Reporter

Mike Elk, a reporter with the progressive In These Times, tried to ask Honeywell CEO Dave Cote a question during an event at the U.S. Capitol. During his question, a burly security person ripped the microphone out of Elk’s hands, which turned a mere adversarial question into a viral video sensation.

Later that day, Mr. Elk accused Honeywell’s “external communications director Rob Ferris of barricading him in a room for several minutes,” according to PR Daily.

Had Mr. Cote simply answered the question (heck, even if he had dodged it), this would have been a non-story.

DON’T MISS OUR HOTTEST POSTS! Enter your name in the upper right hand box of this blog to begin receiving emails of our most popular stories.

Earlier today, both CNN and the Fox News Channel misreported the Supreme Court’s decision regarding President Obama’s health care law.

Screengrab by Jason Keath

I hammered CNN on Twitter for its mistake. Well-known investor Henry Blodget took me to task, arguing that “News orgs will always make mistakes…I’m sure they’re ripshit about it. Someone will probably get fired. But it is what it is. And it’s now old news.”

With all due respect, I believe that he couldn’t be more wrong. The issue isn’t hammering a news organization for a single mistake, but for failing to learn from high-profile mistakes the network—and other media organizations—have made in the past.

CNN, for example, did a lot of journalistic introspection after retracting its infamous “Operation Tailwind” story in 1998. But that didn’t stop the network from incorrectly calling Florida for Al Gore two years later (disclosure: I worked for CNN at the time, but had no influence over that call). 

And last year, CNN was again part of the story when many major news organizations—most notably National Public Radio—incorrectly reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died. This appeared on NPR’s blog:

“2:24 p.m. ET: CNN reports it too has confirmed that Giffords was killed.”

They’re not alone. In 2004, The New York Post splashed John Kerry’s Vice Presidential choice on its front page: “Dem picks (Dick) Gephardt,” blared the headline. Except he didn’t. John Edwards got the nod.

In 1981, President Reagan’s spokesperson, James Brady, was declared dead by news networks after being hit by one of John Hinkley’s bullets. He’s still alive.

Remember President Thomas E. Dewey? In 1948, The Chicago Tribune named him the winner of the presidential election. He wasn’t. Harry Truman was elected to a full term.

These are just a few examples – the list of incorrect media stories could include hundreds of others.

As I’ve written before, journalists are under enormous pressure to report the latest information during a breaking news event. But as my former CNN colleague Bernard Kalb was fond of saying, “Get it first, but first get it second.” In other words, get the story first – but first, get a second source to confirm it.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

This morning’s decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the individual mandate—and the majority of the Affordable Care Act—is a huge victory for the Obama Administration. 

By a 5-4 verdict, The Supreme Court decided that the President’s signature health care legislation, commonly known as “ObamaCare,” will stand. The Court appears only to have thrown out a provision that would penalize states for not expanding their Medicaid rolls.

It’s impossible to analyze the High Court’s decision without considering what it means for November’s presidential election.

Most importantly, by winning today, President Obama avoids the stench of being framed as a political “loser” who wasted a massive amount of political capital on an unconstitutional bill. His victory will allow him to campaign on the Bill’s key provisions: providing health care to 30 million Americans by 2022 who otherwise wouldn’t have it, doing away with pre-existing conditions and lifetime insurance caps, and adding children up to age 26 to their parents’ insurance policies.

Republicans have a bigger messaging challenge. Mitt Romney is a flawed spokesperson for the anti-mandate message, since he supported an individual mandate while serving as governor of Massachusetts. Plus, other prominent conservatives—Newt Gingrich comes to mind—until recently supported the individual mandate.

The breakdown of the Court’s decision also complicates their messaging strategy. The swing vote upholding ObamaCare belonged to conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, a Bush appointee. That prevents conservatives from running against a “liberal” court.

But Republicans have a couple of potentially potent openings. First, the Court decided that the individual mandate would survive as a “tax,” despite the Obama Administration’s earlier insistence that it wasn’t one. That allows Republicans to accuse President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class. Sarah Palin, for example, was quick to tweet this morning that, “Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.”

Second, ObamaCare remains deeply unpopular with many voters. If Mitt Romney runs on repealing it—and it appears that he will—he may help energize portions of the G.O.P. base and boost fundraising.

Two other big losers today are CNN and Fox News, both of which initially reported that the Court killed the individual mandate. But the biggest media loser of the day is CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who predicted in March that “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down.” His words serve as an important reminder to spokespersons that issuing highly speculative predictions is a bad idea that can badly undermine your credibility.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Racial epithets, communists, anti-woman sentiment, and uninhibited profanity.

The most recent episode of Mad Men, you say? Nope. That nonsense didn’t end in 1968.

Without further ado, here are the five worst video media disasters of April 2012!

5. Fox Commentator Drops The F-Bomb On The Air

It’s not so much that liberal commentator Bob Beckel said the f-word with gusto on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show. It’s his reaction that makes this clip priceless. Mr. Beckel didn’t know they were on the air – and his tonal shift from defiance to finger-pointing to contrition unfolds in a couple of highly amusing minutes. 

Although this clip only ranks at number five on the list, it’s my personal favorite of the month.

4. Washington, DC Councilman Marion Barry Blasts Asian Business Owners

Former DC mayor and current councilman Marion Barry slammed Asians when he said: “We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go.”

Well, at least it’s not like he’s the chair of DC’s Committee on Aging and Community Affairs, which is responsible for Asian issues, right? Oh, wait, he is? Wow. That’s quite a gaffe.

3. Look Out, Joseph McCarthy. You Have Competition.

Did you know that there are between 78 to 81 Democratic members of the House of Representatives who are members of the Communist Party?

Nope, that’s not a headline from 1954. That McCarthy-esque statement came from Rep. Allen West (R-FL) during a town hall meeting earlier this month, evoking the worst days from the Red Scare.

I’m just waiting for someone to ask him, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

DID YOU MISS THE TEN WORST MEDIA DISASTERS OF 2011? CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP.

2. Football Coach Pays Players to Injure Competitors

In a remarkably violent and vulgar audio tape, former New Orleans Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams was caught offering players money to injure members of the opposing team. About one player, he said:

“We’ve got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore’s head…we want his head sideways.” About another player, he said, “we fuckin’ take out that outside ACL.”

Mr. Williams’ disgusting rant earned him an indefinite suspension from the NFL. May he never spend another moment on a professional, college, high school, or youth football field.

1. Hilary Rosen Slams Ann Romney

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen handed Republicans a giant cudgel when she said that Ann Romney “has never worked a day in her life.” Many women were genuinely offended at Ms. Rosen’s assertion, especially given that Ms. Romney was a stay at home mother who raised five boys.

Ms. Rosen should have known better, especially since these types of comments have drawn scrutiny in the past. In 1992, Hillary Clinton caused her husband’s campaign unnecessary heartache when she declared that, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession.”

Ms. Rosen’s comment, which helped Republicans neutralize the “war on women,” quickly drew condemnation from within her own party. Within days, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden, White House Spokesman Jay Carney, and Campaign Communications Director David Axelrod all condemned her remark. 

Bonus 1: Woman-Lover Herman Cain Says Men Are Better Informed

Why do men support Mitt Romney more than women? It’s because men are better informed, according to former GOP frontrunner Herman Cain. Is it me, or can you not wait for this “war on women” to end?

Bonus 2: West Virginia Senate Candidate Compares Smoking Ban to Hitler

John Raese (R-WV) thinks that a smoking ban is the “same thing” as Adolf Hitler’s policy that forced Jews to wear a Star of David so they could be more easily identified. A hint to all politicians and pundits: the Hitler/Nazi analogy rarely works.

Bonus 3: CNN Reporter Says F-Word And N-word Live On Air

While quoting a Facebook page of an Oklahoma criminal suspect, veteran CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti used a rather vulgar phrase. I understand why she wouldn’t want to dilute the stark language by replacing epithets with euphemisms. But on CNN, which is blared in businesses, restaurants, airport terminals and hotel lobbies across the country? Bad idea, and Ms. Candiotti should have known better. 

President Obama appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Tuesday night and participated in a recurring bit called “Slow Jamming The News.”

Almost immediately, conservatives began attacking the President’s appearance as un-presidential.

Fox and Friends host Gretchen Carlson, for example, called his appearance “nutso,” and said, “I personally do not agree with the highest office of the land, the most important figure in the world going on these comedy shows. I think it lowers the status of the office.”

Is she right? Do these types of appearances lower the status of the office? First, watch the clip below to decide for yourself whether this skit went too far:

Ms. Carlson is right that this is all very new: President Obama is the first U.S. president to appear on a late night television comedy program during his presidency. But late night appearances are almost de rigueur for presidential or vice presidential candidates these days – and have been for more than a half-century. Here are seven examples of candidate appearances on comedy programs:

June 16, 1960: Senator John F. Kennedy appears on Jack Parr’s Tonight Show:

1968: Richard Nixon delivers a signature line on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In:

March 13, 1975: Ronald Reagan appears on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (although he was not a candidate at the time, he announced his candidacy for the 1976 race months later)

1992: Bill Clinton plays sax on The Arsenio Hall Show:

2000: George W. Bush delivers a Top Ten list on Late Night with David Letterman:

2008: Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin raps on Saturday Night Live (presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain also appeared on different episodes)

March 2012: Mitt Romney appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno:

Candidates regularly appear on late night comedy shows to display their “human” sides and to appeal to younger voters. It’s often a smart political decision, since many independent voters base their decisions primarily on personal factors, not policy or ideological ones.

Ms. Carlson’s angst may be legitimate, and it’s fair to argue that the President should uphold a certain level of dignity. But I couldn’t find any evidence that Ms. Carlson spoke out against Mr. McCain’s or Ms. Palin’s appearances on Saturday Night Live in 2008. In fact, her weekend counterparts at the time called Sarah Palin’s appearance on the show – the one in which she “raised the roof” during a ludicrous rap – “hilarious,” “great,” and “clever.”

Is Carlson’s line really that it’s fine for a Republican or Democratic nominee to appear on these shows, but not the sitting president? It’s her right to believe that, but I see it as a distinction without a difference. If anything, it seems to me that a presidential aspirant has to work harder to be seen as presidential than the incumbent.

The debate, therefore, is somewhat predictable, with pundits on both sides playing a set role and performing set lines, as if on cue. Appearances on late night comedy programs are good if the pundit likes the candidate, and bad if they don’t.

To answer the question posed by this post, President Obama definitely explored new turf in his appearance. But Americans are used to people in power appearing on these shows – candidates Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush (and others) paved the way – and Mr. Obama’s appearance is a logical continuation of that tradition.

President Obama appears on Late Night With David Letterman in September 2012

An increasingly diffuse audience means that politicians have to use different means to reach their targets. And President Obama was perfectly on message. I think this appearance was on the right side of the line, if only barely. But expect to see a lot more of them from future presidents.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Follow politics and the media? Like our Facebook page to keep up with our latest posts.

Eight contenders squared off tonight in the final debate before this weekend’s Iowa Straw Poll.

The debate was a final opportunity for under-financed candidates to break through before the critical straw poll – and a couple of the candidates took advantage of their chance. 

Other websites will review how well the candidates did tonight. But this scorecard is based on seven specific communications criteria that have accurately predicted the outcomes of every general election in the 24/7 media age, which began in 1980.

Here are tonight’s grades, in order of best to worst:

1st Place (tie): MICHELE BACHMANN

Who She Is: Bachmann is a Congresswoman representing Minnesota’s 6th district since 2007 and a founder of the House’s Tea Party Caucus.

How She Did: Rep. Bachmann is the Teflon candidate, seemingly impervious to attack. If anything, attacks from her fellow candidates seem to elevate her standing in the race. She handled an offensive question from panelist Byron York about whether she would be submissive to her husband in a calm and controlled manner that made him look like a jerk.

Bachmann knows how to deliver an applause line, and often delivers several of them in rapid fire succession. When responding to Tim Pawlenty’s attack on one of her votes, she eviscerated him without appearing mean.

Still, Bachmann didn’t look happy in this debate. She was missing from the stage after a commercial break, and many tweeters are already speculating that she was coping with a migraine. She scored points in the last debate for her warm delivery as a “happy warrior;” her change in tone this time was noteworthy.

Grade: B+

1st Place (tie): MITT ROMNEY

Who He Is: Romney is a former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate widely thought to be a frontrunner for this year’s Republican nomination.

How He Did: If Michele Bachmann is the Teflon candidate, Romney is her eager understudy. He deflected aggressive questioning with on-message responses, some of which failed to answer the question he was being asked. Impressively, he said there were seven ways to fix the economy, and then listed all seven things in order.

In order to win the general election, Mr. Romney has to thread the needle between being an acceptable candidate to conservatives without scaring independents. He did that well in this debate.

Gov. Romney is a bit looser than he’s been in the past, which will help. But his unscripted comment earlier today that “corporations are people” may be a sign that he’s trying a bit too hard.

Grade: B+

3rd Place: NEWT GINGRICH

Who He Is: Gingrich was the Speaker of the House for four years in the 1990s, and is widely associated with 1994’s successful Contract With America.

How He Did: Rep. Gingrich’s strong performance tonight may quiet talk of his campaign’s demise – at least for the moment. Mr. Gingrich connected with the audience better tonight, dropping the wonky rhetoric (mostly) and forging a more visceral emotional connection. His big, sweeping gestures conveyed authority and confidence, more so than the overly-controlled gestures of his competitors.

Grade: B

4th Place: TIM PAWLENTY

Who He Is: Pawlenty, also known as “T-Paw,” was governor of Minnesota from 2003-2011.

How He Did: Gov. Pawlenty has struggled throughout this campaign to get noticed. By attacking Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney head on, he is indeed going to get noticed. His short sound bites, clearly scripted in advance to be played the next day on cable talk shows, are going to help him earn some badly-needed TV time. But my sense is that most voters won’t reward his attacks, which felt somewhat contrived given his amiable reputation.

On President Obama and Mitt Romney, he said:

“I’ll offer a prize tonight to anybody in this auditorium, or anyone watching television. If you can find Barack Obama’s specific plan on any of those items, I will come to your house and cook you dinner. Or, if you prefer, I’ll come to your house and mow your lawn. But in case Mitt wins, I’m limiting one acre.”

About Michele Bachmann, he said:

“In Congress, her record of accomplishments and results is non-existent. That’s not going to be good enough for our candidate for President of the United States.”

Grade: C+

5th Place (tie): RON PAUL

Who He Is: First elected to the House of Representatives in 1976, Dr. Paul is a libertarian popular with the Ayn Rand crowd.

How He Did: It’s hard to say anything new about Ron Paul. Another debate, another professorial economics and foreign policy lecture.

That’s not to say that Dr. Paul isn’t substantive and serious about policy – he is. But his passionate call to end international militarism aside, he didn’t do anything different in this debate to expand his small but passionate base. .

Grade: C-

5th Place (tie) RICK SANTORUM

Who He Is: Santorum is a former two-term Senator from Pennsylvania who was voted out of office in 2006 by an embarrassing 17-point margin.

How He Did: It’s never a good sign when you get the most attention in a debate for complaining that you’re not getting enough attention. In fairness, Santorum made his points well in moments, but not enough to help him jump to the top – or even the middle – tier.

Plus, what was with his answer lamenting that legal polygamy was a serious risk?

Grade: C-

7th Place: HERMAN CAIN

Who He Is: Cain is the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

How He Did: Mr. Cain is good at delivering a sound bite, but still doesn’t seem in command of policy. He spends as much time defending (and running away from) previous controversial statements as he does advancing his own policy ideas.

Cain comes across as a likeable hard-worker who’s eager to please – but as someone decidedly not ready for the White House.

Grade: D+

8th Place: JON HUNTSMAN

Who He Is: Huntsman is the former two-term governor of Utah who more recently served as President Obama’s ambassador to China. This was his first presidential debate.

How He Did: Gov. Huntsman failed to say anything that energized the Iowa crowd, and it’s not hard to see why. Mr. Huntsman doesn’t speak the everyday language that connects with voters, instead speaking in the bureaucratic language of “safeguards,” “counter-measures,” and “strategic dialogues.”

Mr. Huntsman is competent enough at articulating his views, but it’s hard to see where he fits in in this race.

Grade: D

Do you agree or disagree with my analysis? If you disagree, what elements of your favorite candidate’s communications style do you think I missed? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Related: June 13, 2011 Republican Debate Scorecard

Related: May 5, 2011 Republican Debate Scorecard

This post is unprecedented. But since this is a media training blog, I decided to use my own media relations disaster story as a case study.

Earlier this morning, I released the Top Ten Media Disasters of 2010, my big year-end wrap up of the the worst media gaffes committed by spokespersons this year. I placed the story on a national wire, sent it to my network on Facebook and Twitter, and pitched it to a couple of larger websites.

One of those website was Mediaite, a fast-growing website started by NBC News alum Dan Abrams that boasted two million unique visitors last month. Colby Hall, the Managing Editor of Mediaite, expressed interest in the story, and we agreed that I would allow Mediaite to copy the story onto their own platform, with full attribution to the Mr. Media Training Blog.

Everything was running smoothly until I did a Google search to see the day’s coverage.

To my surprise, Mr. Hall appeared on Shepard Smith’s Fox News Channel program this afternoon to discuss my story. The video of his appearance is here. I was disappointed to see that Fox News had fonted the segment, “Mediaite.com Releases List of 10 Worst Media Disasters,” but gave them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t know the story’s origin.

But then, to my even greater surprise, Mr. Hall claimed the story as his own. Here’s a portion of the transcript:

Shepard Smith: “How did you pick these?” 

Colby Hall: “Uhh, well, there was no shortage of choices. Turns out people said a lot of stupid things in the past year, and the confluence of cable TV and the Internet, we cover every base, so there was no shortage of choices, but we have a lot to choose from.”

Shepard Smith: “Your number five one, this isn’t actually on your site, this isn’t on your website. You picked for us the President giving up the podium for former President Clinton. Why’d you pick that for us and not for your website?” 

Colby Hall: “Well, we had done the list before that happened.”

Colby Hall During a Previous Fox Appearance

Mr. Hall’s segment ran five minutes. Not once did he – or Fox News – credit this blog. Nor did he — or anyone at Mediaite — have anything to do with choosing the clips in my original story. 

I e-mailed him this evening to ask what happened. Below is an excerpt of his response:

“…their producers saw your post and asked to have me speak about it. I had every intention to credit you properly but it was live, and I’m pretty much a novice on TV and I totally spaced. Not an excuse – I just didn’t do it because, well…my mind was racing….I can certainly understand why you’d be frustrated by how that taping went down.” 

Sounds reasonable. But then I went back to Mediaite, and saw this story, posted on Mediaite today at 5:34pm. It reads:

“Earlier today, Mediaite Managing Editor Colby Hall appeared on Fox News’ Studio B with Shepard Smith to discuss Mediaite’s Ten Worst Media Disasters of 2010, and after running down the titular list, Smith gave a boost to the site’s street cred. Not only did Smith correctly pronounce the name of our site (unlike Rush Limbaugh), but went on to observe “It’s not like you guys are always wonderful to us, but I always enjoy reading it.”

Reality isn’t always wonderful to them, either, but it is to Fox News’ credit that they aren’t afraid to acknowledge criticism, and still engage with the source of it. Here’s Colby Hall’s appearance on Studio B (from Fox News): (you can read Mediaite’s Ten Worst Media Disasters of 2010 here)

So where did Fox News get the idea that this was Mediaite’s work? Well, from Mediaite itself, which completely eliminated the Mr. Media Training attribution in the follow-up story and claimed it as its own – twice.

UPDATE, 10:50pm: I just spoke with Mr. Hall for half an hour. We have a disagreement regarding the word “re-purpose.” From his perspective, re-purpose meant that my work became a “Mediaite” story. I’ve never heard that from any of the dozens of websites I’ve successfully worked with before. From my perspective, my work remains my intellectual property, requiring attribution on every use.

UPDATE: December 21, 5:59am: I just went back and looked at the original e-mails between me and Mr. Hall. Here are his two e-mails to me, unedited, seeking permission to use my work:

Monday, December 20, 8:02am:

Hi Brad — this is great.

Would you be open to us repurposing this entire post under your byline?

Let me know,

Colby

I agreed. At 8:18am, he wrote back, saying:

sure – do you have a bio that I can add to the end? 

To be clear, I’d love to repost the entire feature (which is really well done and comprehensive.)

Again, I agreed to allow that.

His first e-mail indicated that repurposing would occur under my byline. The second makes clear that I agreed to allow him to “repost” — not to allow him to take the story and claim it as Mediaite’s original work on a nationally broadcast television news program.

These e-mails may be subject to interpretation, but it seems to me that Mediaite’s use of my material went beyond the agreement we forged.

UPDATE: December 22, 2010, 8:42am: I received an e-mail blast from Mediaite yesterday afternoon, long after my conversation with Mr. Hall. In the tease to one of its stories, Mediaite once again promoted “their” top ten disasters list. That represents the third time in two days that Mediaite used my work without the promised attribution.

Our agreement together called for attribution of my work. I remain disturbed that he used my work, unattributed, to promote his own brand on the Fox News Channel.

I don’t know if I’ll allow Mediaite to use my material in the future. In the meantime, I’d caution other writers to explicitly define the terms of their agreement with Mediaite before proceeding together.

December 22, 2010: 3:35pm: Thank you to the Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith, who graciously offered an on-air correction this afternoon. Below are his remarks:

“Couple of days ago, we had a segment that aired here on Studio B that listed the top ten media disasters of 2010. Our guest of that day was the Mediaite.com managing editor, Colby Hall. And as we reported, the media disaster list was published on the Mediaite website. What was not reported was that the original source of the content wasn’t Mediaite. Frankly, because I didn’t know that. That was courtesy of Mr. Media Training blog. So there we go. Cleared up.”

That Mr. Smith took time to issue that comment on a busy news day is even more impressive, and speaks to his commitment to accuracy. I offer my sincerest thanks to Mr. Smith and his executive producer, Jay Wallace.

UPDATE: December 22, 2010, 6:17pm: Here’s the write-up of the incident from the New York Observer.