Once Esther told Fred Sanford that beauty is only skin deep, and what's really important is what's inside a person. "Yeah?" said Fred. "Then why don't you put your liver where your face is?"
But how are writers to respond to communication consultants who would tell clients that it's not the words they use or the veracity of the ideas they espouse, but the body language they employ, that makes the difference.
Communication consultants like Carol Kinsey Goman, who chirped on Facebook last week, "KRON TV just asked me to compare the body language of GOP contenders with that of President Obama. I'll be on the weekend news this Sunday at 8:45 am." Oh, for heaven't sake, Carol.
Well finally, there's a worthy response to all this body language bullshit: "Busting the Mehrabian Myth." Actually, this little video has been around for three years, and it's been seen by 58,000 people—everyone, it appears, except me, and Carol Kinsey Goman. It was made by my British speechwriting pals Martha Leyton and Martin Shovel. Have a look. And pass it on.
You're trained in journalism. What if you were leafing through a magazine and you saw the following headlines:
This is not a joke
I know, I know, I know
I want to be able to say
Iraq
Hey
A dollar a day
We can’t wait
They got it wrong
Stronger for it
Take him up on it
You'd think, This magazine needs a headline writer.
Yet, these are typical subject lines from e-mails I've gotten from BarackObama.com.
Now, first let me acknowledge difference between subject lines and headlines. An e-mail subject line is preceeded by the name of the author, which gives it context. If you got an e-mail from your boss with the subject line, "See me," that would be a lame headline, but an urgent call to action.
An e-mail from BarackObama.com, however, comes to me once every few days, and when I see it's from old Barry, I don't sit up straight in my chair anymore.
So the Obama campaign is becoming more like a magazine. It's trying to pull people in with their headlines ... but also needing to identify what this particular note is about so as not to waste the time of someone who is wholly uninterested.
Like most Obama supporters, I'm interested in some BarackObama.com stuff, and I'm not interested in other BarackObama.com stuff. (For instance, I've said do not want to have dinner with Barack and three nervous twits who donated $5 and won a chance to drool on their shirts; like Jan Brewer, if I'm going to mix it up with Barack, he and I will need some privacy.)
With these opaque subject lines, the Obama campaign is failing to fulfill one of the main responsibilities of the headline writer: Let the discerning reader discern.
Keep sending us shit with headlines like, "I know, I know, I know," and the only people who will open these will be shut-ins and people who haven't heard from themselves in three months.
So what sorts of subject lines would I like to see on these e-mails?
Well, let's take the e-mail that appears below the opaque subject line, "Stronger for it."
David --
We're building something different here.
Ours is the only major presidential campaign that outright rejects contributions from Washington lobbyists and refuses money from special-interest PACs.
No matter what the deadline, no matter what the pressures or distractions, we're always going to do this the right way: one person and one grassroots donation at a time.
It's the hard way to do it, but we're stronger for it in the end.
So please donate $3 or more before midnight tonight:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Friday-Deadline
Thank you,
Barack
P.S. -- If you make a donation of any amount before midnight, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to join me for dinner with three other supporters.
Okay, count me out for the stupid dinner, but I dig the rest of it. So how about a subject line that says: "Help us hold onto the high ground."
E-mail subject lines are limited in space; writing my own e-blasts, I hate not having a subhead to tell the reader even more before he or she clicks.
But I think you'll agree that "Help us hold onto the high ground," is a hell of a lot better than "Stronger for it."
Or would you?
I reckon ain't nobody smarter than the Obama people about campaigning, so I acknowledge that maybe I'm missing something.
... that its truly worthy objects are too dense to see themselves in it. A case in point comes from response my friend Hugh Iglarsh wrote to a blog that covers the Chicago suburb of Winnetka. Hugh is clever, but he is not subtle.
Dear Editor:
I would like to thank Winnetka native Eva Sorock for setting us all straight on the issues of affordable housing, fairness, creeping collectivism and justice itself, Winnetka style. How quickly we forget that “private property rights are the underpinning of democracy,” as Ms. Sorock so splendidly puts it.
As a committed one-percenter with vast holdings and a deep and abiding hatred of any change whatsoever, it makes my blood boil to hear this liberal cant about democracy meaning rule by the majority and equality before the law. We are human beings too, and it hurts us deeply when others who are not members of our much-maligned minority imply that a community’s unwillingness to abide by fair housing rules suggests some sort of reluctance on its part to share the good things in life. In fact, we are generous and giving, and love to experience the gratitude of the little people, as long as it’s expressed at a reasonable distance from our own well-tended lawns. Goodness gracious, next thing you know we’ll have schoolteachers, social workers, nurses and other such riffraff living right next door to the respectable elements, indulging night and day in all manner of liberalism and indecency, and undermining our freedom and way of life.
How one longs for the old days, when property rights truly were king, and restrictive covenants kept the village as finely sifted as good white flour. Now there was representative democracy in action, when property and wealth were fully represented, untrammeled by law, public opinion or nosy activists—and free of the sanctimonious elitism that so dogs us today. It is clear as the bulge of my wallet that this so-called Interfaith Housing Center gets its orders straight from the Kremlin, and I hope Mr. Hoover and his gallant G-men are keeping close tabs on these impulses of fairness and decency and diversity that pose such grave threat to our property values and—sense of entitlement.
Yours “sincerely"—
Mr. Potter , Bedford Falls, NY (a/k/a Hugh Iglarsh, Skokie IL)
I mean, if nothing else did, you'd think the quotes around "sincerely" would have tipped people off, but the editor of the paper thanked Hugh for his "thoughtful comments" ... and the target of the rant-in-reverse responded, "Thanks so much for respond [sic]. Good to know sensible people do exist! Happy New Year, Eva Sorock."
Perhaps you heard that the longtime paid executive director of the International Association of Business Communicators announced her retirement last May.
But did you know that when Julie Freeman left office Dec. 31, the association had still not hired anyone to replace her? So they brought in John Clemons, a longtime IABC volunteer and association booster, who was coincidentally leaving his community relations job at Raytheon, to act as interim president.
He'll commute from his home in Virginia to manage the San Francisco staff until a new executive can be found.
What's taking so long to find an executive director? How was it that Clemons happened to be available at the precise moment Freeman flew the coop? Why was it necessary (and wasn't it expensive?) to bring in an IABC member (with a communication skill set) as opposed to appointing a senior staffer (with association management experience)?
These were the obvious questions that occurred to me when I learned of this whole thing—on Facebook, where Clemons' IABC chums congratulated him on the role.
I also felt a pang of guilt, because since I've been at Vital Speeches these last few years, I haven't paid much attention to IABC. Before that, I'd covered the association for most of two decades for The Ragan Report, and I was usually the only journalist who did. The annual press conference at an IABC International Conference usually consisted the outgoing volunteer chairman, the incoming volunteer chairman, Julie Freeman and me. I'd covered the association in fat times and in lean times—like the time, right before Freeman came on board, when IABC was on the verge of collapsing due to some utterly imbecilic management moves made possible in part by a lack of outside scrutiny.
And now to learn on Facebook that IABC can't seem to replace Freeman and have appointed John Clemons in her stead ...
So I sent a quick note to Clemons, who said he didn't know anything about the search for a permanent executive director, because he's not on the search committee. I asked him why he was leaving Raytheon, and he replied: "I can tell you that I left Raytheon on Jan. 2."
Candidly, John has never been terribly candid. So I shrugged, and wrote to Freeman.
When I didn't hear back from her, I asked another IABC stalwart, a woman I've known for two decades, who usually tells it like it is. She told me that IABC had actually found an executive director who the board had liked, but that the candidate's husband had gotten a better job and she'd spit the bit. So they had to go back to square one.
No big deal—stuff that had apparently been shared in one form or another with IABC members—but she asked that I keep her comments off the record, and referred me to IABC's current volunteer chairman, the Australian communication consultant Adrian Cropley.
I know Adrian, having met him on a trip to Melbourne a few years ago. But I know Shel Holtz better. And since he and his pal Neville Hobson had done a long interview with Clemons on their FIR podcast that didn't ask any questions surrounding the circumstances of IABC's current leadership situation, I sent him a needling note: I asked him if he's concerned, now that Ragan doesn't bother covering IABC, that nobody is watching things at his professional association. And I suggested that maybe he ought to "remember your journalistic roots" and ask questions and not let interview subjects "spout the moldy old platitudes and non-answers."
I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised when Holtz essentially told me to get my own damn podcast.
As he and I exchanged concilliatory e-mails—we're longtime friends and our relationship has been characterized by chippy debate—I finally wrote to chairman Cropley.
By this time, I was getting agitated.
Adrian, I wandered into this with an honest question about this ungainly moment in IABC’s governance—and with a little embarrassment from having not paid enough attention to the association for awhile. (I also worry that no trade reporter is really covering the association the way we used to at Ragan.)
And the response I’m getting ranges from nervous to tight-lipped to hostile—and these are my friends!
Talk me down, Adrian. Tell me what’s going on, and let me get back to my blissful ignorance.
Cropley wrote back to me with a few pleasantries, and then:
Agree you should have come to me first. I don’t know why you feel you have had nervous or tight-lipped responses. ...
For your peace of mind, let me share where we are at point in the process – and this is all very open information. IABC selected a wonderful candidate in our first round, and the candidate was very excited about the opportunity. However, circumstances changed rather quickly in the candidate’s personal life. Namely, the candidate’s spouse was also offered a new opportunity, and they were trying to make decisions in the best interest of their family. In the end, our candidate felt that the best decision for her family was stay put with spouse and not to uproot their children in a move to San Francisco. So, she reluctantly declined the offer.
So, we started the search again. And as you know, senior level searches do take time. We are balancing the desire to move quickly with the goal of finding the best person to lead IABC in this next phase of the association’s development. With John as the interim leader, we have the time to do this right.
While the process is open, we respect the confidentiality of the candidates. Just like any other job search. All of the candidates we interviewed, including the finalist, wouldn’t want their current employers to know that they’ve been looking elsewhere.
The board has responsibility for voting on the finalist for executive director. Of course, they want to meet the candidates and interview them in-person before they take a vote. Our board is truly international, and they only meet in person three times a year. The search committee is bringing the most qualified candidates before the board when they meet in person in February.
As for John Clemons and his employment with Raytheon that is completely John's business. John is a former chair and highly respected among IABC members. When the need for an interim leader became clear, John was available and willing to support IABC in this capacity. The board has the utmost confidence in John to lead the staff until a permanent new executive director is hired.
I appreciate your interest in IABC and trust that my note addresses your concerns.
Regards,
Adrian
I wrote back with some follow-up questions. The obvious questions, only one of which he had even begun to answer. And then—it was a Saturday, and on weekends one doesn't feel quite as professional as one feels during the week—I sent a follow-up e-mail with the subject line, "One more thing."
You’re answering the questions “For your peace of mind?” Adrian, I’m not some cranky IABC member who habitually comes to you with far-out conspiracy theories. I’m a journalist who has covered IABC for two decades, who has focused his attention on other things, was surprised to find out that IABC has no permanent chairman. So I asked the people I knew. And I got ducked, dodged and kicked. And then I went to the chairman, and he condescended to me with this “peace of mind” business, and then contradicted his condescension by saying, “I appreciate your interest in IABC.”
Also, and this is just a question of manners: It’s not good form to end letter to a journalist, or anyone else you respect, by saying, “trust that my note addresses your concerns.” Instead you say, “Let me know if you have more questions.”
Thanks,
David
I know. I am an asshole. Recognizing this too, Cropley moved for a phone call. Which we had, yesterday. And of course on the phone, I was much less of an asshole. Cropley was nicer, too.
Cropley explained that the candidate turn-down happened in November and he immediately began casting around for possible interim executive directors. Paid senior staffers were among those considered, but every staffer was deemed too busy to take on the added role, and to "back-fill" their jobs would be impractical.
(Though neither party will say how) somehow Cropley ascertained that John Clemons was soon going to be leaving Raytheon (though neither party will say why he left Raytheon). Whatevs: Clemons was seen as a friendly IABC vet who would nurture the staff through the transition. And actually, Cropley says, the delay was a blessing in disguise, as "it allowed staff to let go" of Freeman before getting a new permanent boss.
Despite the fact that Clemons is indeed commuting to IABC's San Francisco headquarters from his home in Virginia, the arrangement isn't costing IABC any more than it would have cost to keep Freeman on, Cropley says. He's not making the trip every week, and he's only working three days a week in any case.
Meanwhile, the search committee has selected candidates for the executive director job and the board meets again in February to consider this crop. Assuming someone gets the nod, Cropley's hoping the new chief can start in March.
So from what I can tell, it's all good—just as everybody told me all along.
"To be honest no one really cares and apart from you no one has really shown any interest," Cropley wrote me before our call; on the phone, he told me that he hadn't immediately understood that I was grilling him as a journalist. And I told him that I thought this whole awkward mini-fiasco occurred precisely because no one has shown any interest over the last couple of years. An organization that expects a nosy journalist to ask impertinent questions at awkward moments is more ready to answer such questions.
Cropley agreed, and he and I both looked forward to my covering the IABC International Conference here in Chicago in June (I'm speaking there too). And, depending on the time, resources and platform I have (Writing Boots don't pay my travel expenses), we agreed it would be good if I—or someone, anyway—covered IABC business more regularly in the future.
Adrian and I reckon that'll be better for everyone.
I'll say only one more thing tonight, and then I'll leave it alone. Listening to these pundits go back and forth, I'm reminded of the enduring wisdom of Thomas Daly I, who founded Vital Speeches of the Day in 1934 on the notion that the press was giving us nothing but tiny excerpts and their intepretations of what the world's leading thinkers were saying. Daly decided that American citizens deserved to hear the entire message. Whether Americans will read 7,000 word speeches today—or whether those speeches really contain the sincere meat of the best thinking in the world—that's up for grabs. But we'd be better off just listening to the speeches, however disingenuous, than just listening to these fucking pundits.
Good night.
10:38
Lots of Republicans must be groaning right now. Daniels sounds as smart as Gigrich and as sane as Romney.
10:32
Mitch Daniels appears to be giving the best Republican response in memory. But "have and soon-to-haves" is some barfy-sounding stuff. (And a "pro-poverty policy [that must be] replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach"? Pish.)
10:19
At the end, I'm transfixed at the top of the stairs, standing in a puddle of wine. The wife is downstairs bellowing at me: "I told you this was going to be the big speech. He is amazing!" Scout's asleep now, but Charlie, very much cognizent of the fact that this is the household of the editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, is keeping his composure.
10:01
These deafening silences he is forcing are effective, and ballsy.
8:52
And an Air Force fighter pilot friend posts on Facebook: "Words, words...I'm hearing a lot of words. I have the cure to cancer written on a bar napkin somewhere. I can't remember where I put it though."
8:48
I got your dial-test right here. I run downstairs and ask my Chicago schoolteacher wife how she likes the speech so far. "I love him more than ever."
9:39
Eight-year-old daughter Scout is downstairs looking at pictures of the Obamas' dog, Bo. Surely she's old enough to build me another orange blossom. These SOTU speeches bore the shit out of me.
9:32
He leans on this conspiratorial whispering thing too frequently. "Teachers matter!"
9:32
At WhiteHouse.gov, there's actually a Pac Man graphic showing the path to getting a job.
9:29
I'm swearing a lot this year. Thanks, Gordon's.
9:24
Oh no he didn't just go all Sorensen on their corporate asses!
9:14
And, the PowerPoint is gratuitous and distracting.
9:11
That's just a hell of a lot of clapping.
9:03
Herman Cain and I call Wolf Blitzer "Blitz." I despise the way Blitz [breath] breathes in the middle [breath] of phrases. I hyperventillate just listening to the guy. But since I can't listen to Rachel Maddow ever since I heard my octagenarian father say, "Where'd they get her?" I'm stuck with [breath] Blitz.
9:00
SpeechgeekTweeter Rena Silverman reports that the speech clocks in at 7,304 words, just short of Clinton's longest, which was 7,452. Better pour another tall one.
8:46
Holy smoke, I just discovered I can watch "the online-only enhanced version of President Obama's thrid State of the Union Address," at WhiteHouse.gov. "You'll be able to see charts, stats and data that helped inform President Obama's policy decisions as he delivers his speech to the nation."
That's right, babies. The State of the Union—in PowerPoint.
Eat your hearts out.
7:00
Maybe I should first explain why I think it's somehow civilized to "live-blog" the State of the Union Address.
I don't believe anyone should Tweet during speeches, let alone live-blog them, because a speech is a thing where one person talks and everyone shuts up and listens and thinks about what the speaker is saying. Your banal comments during the thing detract not only from your own absorption of it but from everyone else's, too. If it were up to me, during a mamor presidential address, Twitter would be closed.
Luckily, the State of the Union Speech isn't really a speech. If it were a fireside chat about one or three issues, then I would feel responsible to offer a sober analysis of a sincere attempt at communication. Which would require me to keep my mouth shut and my hands in my lap until the thing was over.
But the State of the Union is a series of policy utterances couched in Washington code. (To deride the speech as a "laundry list" is to know what a laundry list is. What is a laundry list?)
Mostly, the State of the Union is a chance for political pundits to show off that they know what the president is really saying.
And if President Obama says anything surprising, we’ll fall off our chairs.
6:21 p.m.
I haven't even cleared my desk in preparation for this fiasco, and already I've missed Mitt Romney's "prebuttal"in which he thanked President Obama in advance for some lovely phrasing but excoriated him for divisive prhetoric. Gotta get up pretty early to beat a teetotalling Mormon to the fetal worm, but I really did think I got up early enough today.
4:33 a.m. EST
A wrinkle in time allows me to give Writing Boots readers a sneak preview of this vital day in the life of the editor of Vital Speeches. Join me tonight for another desperate and dangerous annual attempt to watch and chew words at the same time, during the State of the Union Address.
The speech starts at 9 p.m. EST, but I'm gonna start chugging gin at my desk at 8, latest. Don't make me drink alone.
(And as for the real speech geeks—Mormons and others who take their SOTU sober—they'll be yakking about the speech at tweetchat.com/room/GGSOUT; you can use the hashtag #GGSOTU to join their stream.)
