A reporter’s best friend: Extortion

By Luke Warm

Professor of Mendacity, University of Munchausen

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There’s a scene in Richard Wright’s 1940 novel, Native Son, where a newspaper reporter lays down the lie that should be a tool in every journalist’s kit.

I thought of this strategem while reading the November 29, 2009 New York Times article, “Speculation fills the gap left by Woods’ silence.”

The Times story contains a very clever, if devious,  line of extortion, and since duplicity and mendacity are parts of the same glove, this effort deserves further study. It is eminently instructive.

Therefore, my lecture today will focus on the key and perhaps most-used technique for extracting damning comments from people thrust unwanted into the media spotlight: Extortion.

In Wright’s novel, Native Son, the reporter wants — needs — someone to talk to him.

Though the reporter does not yet know it, the lowly black chauffeur lurking in the background is to be his chief target. Bigger Thomas is a poor ghetto kid who has killed a rich white Chicago socialite. He has not yet been suspected. If he were white, he’d have a lawyer who’d warn him not, under any circumstances, to talk to reporters. Nothing he can say will help him, and anything he says could very likely hang him. But Bigger is black, he is poor, he has no lawyer, and the reporter is hungry for words.

Desperate.

He’s competing against other news hounds as desperate or maybe more so than he.

Any words will do.

He needs those live quotes.

This scene takes place in the basement furnace room of the wealthy family. Unknown to all but Bigger, the remains of the murdered woman are being incinerated in the coal furnace where Bigger placed them. The family is represented by a private investigator who has barred the family and household staff from talking to the press.

Under pressure from reporters, the private detective declares there will be no statement. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Whereupon, an ace reporter unwraps his primary weapon, a lie wrapped in a threat:

“You’re putting us in the position of having to print anything we can get about this case.”

This simple sentence contains so much power that I recommend students memorize it for future use when covering any kind of journalistic story. Indeed, it is so useful a statement that I believe every journalist should print it in boldface on a card, have it laminated, and carry it in their wallets just in case memory fails on a big scoop.

Let us dissect this statement, because it holds several pieces of information. First, as I said, the reporters will indeed write about the case whether or not any of the targets talk to them. It is always good to inject a modicum of truth into our works of mendacity.

But the prologue — “You’re putting us in the position…” is a masterful work of duplicity. Fact: Nobody invited these reporters into a private home. They have inserted themselves into the lives of their targets. They have invaded this house and are looking to sweep up anything they see or hear for use in their stories. Yet, they convert this weakness into a twisted strength by making it appear that they are being wronged. And by wronging the journalists, the targets — the actual victims — are sowing the seeds of retribution against themselves.

You’re putting us in the position of having to print anything we can get about this case.

So short, so concise, so perfect an example of pragmatic mendacity: It will get the job done.

The statement also contains a threat: I’m gonna write about your case whether you talk to me or not. Chances are, if you don’t talk, I’ll get some things wrong. Here’s your chance to set the record straight. Better talk now. Once we start printing that wrong stuff, it gets in people’s minds. Kind of takes over. You’ll never wipe it away with the truth.

I must repeat for you J school students that in this situation, the reporter is actually in the weaker position. Never forget that. You are the underdog. If the target refuses to talk, the reporter is out of luck. His or her hands are empty. That is a condition editors do not like. Editors tend to go ballistic when reporters show up with nought, nil, zilch. Therefore, this is a condition reporters should like even less. Raises and promotions are determined by scoops, and scoops are made by quotes.

Because the reporter is in fact in the subordinate position, it is important in bargaining with the target that the subject be made to believe — erroneously — that he or she has the weaker position. Here is where the first lie comes into play — if you won’t cooperate, we’ll print lies about you. In fact, it is never good to print lies about people, because sometimes those people sue. They call it libel.

Now, now, I hear you. Yes, we are all about lying here at U of M. But as I keep trying to stress, our lies must be subtle. Hard, even impossible, to detect.

That is why we try to layer our lies.

Of course, we are not going to intentionally print outright lies about a person, but we can use lies to persuade them to talk. If they won’t talk, we can speculate in print, cushioning our lies with enough “ifs” and “maybes” to ward off a libel attack.

Having planted the falsehood that we’ll lie about them in our next story, we layer that lie with the utterly false claim that we’re giving the target a chance to set the record straight.

What record?

Well, the record we create. Implicit in this is the threat that we’ll write a record that is negative to the target. We’ve thus sown the threat that we are prejudiced against him or her, as are our readers. That much is out of their power. But we let them know, falsely, of course, that we are generously giving them an opportunity to burnish the negative report we intend to write.

Naturally, what the target doesn’t know is that we have complete control over what sees print, and they have no power at all to “burnish” their side. But all these false impressions build up and appear, wrongly, as an argument in the minds of our target.

Ain’t that neat?

Now, how does this relate to Tiger Woods?

Well, seems Tiger was in his car in the wee hours, near his house in a gated subdivision, when he bumped into a fire hydrant. A neighbor called 911. Maybe Tiger was unconscious, maybe his wife extracted him unconscious from the car by bashing the rear window with a golf club. This is innuendo. We don’t know. We do know the cops thought it so minor an accident they  didn’t post it. Tiger was treated and released from a hospital.

Now, if this happened to you or me, nobody would give a rat’s ass.

But it happened to a billionaire golf pro.

So what, right? It’s still a nothing-burger, right?

Well, not exactly.

There is one subset of homo sapiens who finds this kind of trivia fascinating.

One substratum of humanity who definitely gives a rat’s ass.

I’m referring, of course, to reporters.

But it seems Tiger likes privacy. He’s not talking to cops. He’s not talking to reporters. He’s not talking to anyone, except maybe his lawyer and his agent.

He knows there’s nothing there. The press may fulminate about “charges” that could be filed. What would they be? Bumping into a fire hydrant? Illegally parking? Failure to control an automobile at a speed so low the airbags didn’t deploy?

Anyway, Tiger ain’t talkin.

So what’s to do?

Well, the Times knows what action to take: The old bully boy tactic straight from the playbook of that fictitious Chicago reporter in Richard Wright’s novel.

You’re putting us in the position of having to print anything we can get about this case.

The Times puts its own twist on this approach. It is worth studying for future use. Call a bunch of public relations “experts” and prod them to say that Tiger’s gonna be in trouble — his image will suffer — if he doesn’t set the record straight.

The Times‘s headline says it all: “Speculation Fills the Gap Left by Woods’s Silence.”

You’re putting us in the position of having to print anything we can get about this case.

If you don’t talk, we’ll print stuff anyway. It may not be right, but if we get it wrong, it’s your fault, Tiger. You shoulda talked to us right away.

Heads we win, tails you lose.

Ain’t that cute?

There’s nothing libelous there. In fact, there is no real content there. The basic facts about the accident were already published. Calling those PR talking heads is a journalistic trick, itself a neat bit of deception, that keeps the story afloat, giving other late-arriving journalists a chance to chew on and spit up the basic facts once more.

What’s really impressive about the Times story is that it manages to come off as a story at all, given that it covers up a huge gulch in reporting. The Timesman has done what the Bigger Thomas reporter so feared having to do: He has written a story despite having no quotes from the prime suspect.

By fronting his story with all those talking heads and making Tiger’s reticence the story, the Times manages to disguise the fact that, in truth, it has nothing new to report.

That, my friends, is an example of mendacity at its quintessential and consummate best.

Please don’t be deceived into thinking this story was written for Times readers. It was written with one purpose in mind: Getting into Tiger’s head and bullying him into fulfilling a reporter’s fantasy — a call from Tiger Woods.

Exclusive to the Times.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com