Dress Rehearsal for Scandal

Let’s do a little focus group on the news released this morning that former MSNBC host, President and legal correspondent Dan Abrams is opening a new media consulting venture called Abrams Research. Abrams  looks like he is copying the Gerson Lehrman formula of finding expert information for hedge funds (though instead of getting information from journalists he’ll be getting reactions) and combining it with the idea of jury consulting (where you hone to create a form of trial-run media that can be leased out to corporations on an hourly basis.

You can admire the ingenuity behind the business but wonder at the wisdom of it. Let’s break it down. Abrams has put together a network of media people. Here’s the Journal’s description:

Amid the economic downturn, many journalists have lost jobs at high-profile broadcast networks, newspapers and magazines, as well as at a host of local news organizations. Abrams Research aims to take advantage of these circumstances, providing work for the under- or unemployed, as well as access for its clients to the veteran journalists Mr. Abrams has cultivated over the years. “The goal is to create a global media community,” says Mr. Abrams.

How would you use this resource? The tell in the story is the prominent quote from Adam Miller, the president of Abernathy MacGregor. Abrams and Miller are doing a little log-rolling here. Miller announces his intention to sign up with Abrams Research which gives the story–and attendant publicity–more juice while proclaiming the firm unique. Abernathy does a lot of crisis work and Wall Street PR. The way they would use Abrams Research is to float something–maybe a tricky idea or an awkward situation–hoping to get a taste of the reaction without letting the cat out of the bag. Then, when the story does break, Abernathy will have ammunition for their response before the news cycle begins.

If Abernathy and their clients could get sense of the negative feedback beforehand, they might even be able to blunt or obviate the bad story. With some fast talking, or even just the right piece of evidence, they might squelch a news cycle before it even starts.

It all sounds so great, in theory. The only problem is how you’re going to guarantee that your touchy subject gets tested without leaking out to the very media you’re trying to massage? These are out-of-work journalists, after all. Insiderism is their meat. No journalist can resist the desire to let his or her peers know that they’re in the know. Who cares if you signed a confidentiality agreement? We’re off the record, right?

Think that’s far-fetched? Look at the board Abrams put together:

Steve Brill, founder of Court TV and American Lawyer Media; Kevin Reilly, entertainment president of Fox Broadcasting; Bonnie Fuller, former chief editorial director of American Media; and Curbed Networks founder and former Gawker Media executive Lockhart Steele.

Not exactly a tight-lipped group. But say you’re going to use Abrams Research for something prosaic. There you run into the reverse problem. Journalists are pretty low on the status totem pole. But the one group they feel securely above are public relations folks. There’s nothing a newspaper or magazine writer likes more than being horribly rude to a PR pitching a story. The great mountain of dross pitched to reporters and editors is now going to be presented to a crankier group of them, the unemployed reporters and editors. Would you pay for the abuse feedback you’re going to get from them?

Even if you could engage them constructively–they’re getting paid to be on their best behavior, aren’t they?–there remains the question of their judgment. Reporters and writers don’t decide what’s news, after all. Their editors do.

Ex-MSNBC Chief Taps Journalists as Consultants

Dan Abrams Forms Media-Strategy Firm That Will Offer Corporate Clients Access to Advice From Print, Broadcast Insiders

REBECCA DANA

November 19, 2008, The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705541062139423.html