BIG BROTHER-AND SISTER-ARE WATCHING!
We’ve all followed, sometimes open-mouthed, the very public downfall of now-former Tribune Company (and thus, WGN Radio) boss Randy Michaels and the company’s ex-chief innovation officer, Lee Abrams. While Chicago is one of the most major of major markets and Tribune a huge multimedia corporation, the supposed goings-on within Tribune Tower—and their recent ramifications—carry lessons that apply to all of us in radio management, regardless of market size.
The first is that, for better or worse, we no longer live in a private society. Anything we do that miffs or offends even one other person—whether or not anyone else on the planet is miffed or offended by it—is subject to massive scrutiny and remark. Thus, Abrams’ emailing to a wide audience within the company of an Onion video spoofing a “mass slut spill” on a California
Seemingly, everyone who viewed or even heard of that video had a say about it.
On Facebook, Twitter, blogs, the works. Even a routine Internet search today for “Randy Michaels Tribune” returned nearly 200,000 hits. Now, that is public!
Regardless of whether you are in the Michaels-And-Abrams-Are-Creative-Geniuses department or on the Michaels-And-Abrams-Are-Thoughtless-Boobs side, every radio station manager should take three important lessons from the Tribune blowup:
1. In the Age of Cyberspace, everyone knows a lot about everyone else’s business—especially when it’s high-profile. But not ONLY then. The same circumstances that torpedoed Michaels and Abrams could just as easily lead to
YOUR downfall. Especially if you forget that the days of the Good Old Boys Club are over, at least in business. It was never smart. Now, it’s dangerous
2. There is no censorship in social media. Anyone can say anything about anyone
and there is little the targeted party can do about it. One of the vexing things about the Tribune situation is that while many of the actions and events that have been reported seem to have been well-documented, others have not. Where is the real truth and where the innuendo? We can’t tell. What would people say about you if they could? Well—they can.
3. Radio station managers, male and female, always have the responsibility to behave in a way that reflects well on both themselves and the license for which they are responsible to the public and the government. Operating “in the public interest, convenience and necessity” carries with it a collection of responsibilities with which we’re all familiar. It also means being responsible as a person for how our actions are perceived by employees, ownership, advertisers and the public.
I cherish my privacy. As someone who has run radio stations and also been on the air in very high-visibility capacities in major markets for many years, I know first-hand how even one word, one facial expression, even something not said can set off howls of indignant protest. Today, it’s worth keeping in mind that the people who don’t like you can be cloaked in anonymity in cyberspace. You, however, in your twin capacities as manager of a very top-of-mind medium and guardian of a public trust—your stations’ licenses—cannot.
