Brian Akre of GM PR writes an incredible post detailing the exchange GM had with The New York Times editorial page trying to get in a letter to the editor responding to Tom Friedman’s attack on the company. At the end of the day, they wouldn’t let GM call Friedman’s column “rubbish.” So now they go online with something that, though it doesn’t appear in the august pages of The Times, is far more damaging than one forbidden word. Here’s their email exchange. This is, of course, why it’s such rubbish to say that newspapers have always been conversational because they took letters.
They removed our invitation to Mr. Friedman to come to Detroit to learn the facts about what GM’s doing to reduce our nation’s oil consumption. They removed a sentence in which Steve said falsely accusing GM of “buying votes†in Congress was irresponsible. We didn’t like those edits, but the rest of the letter was left largely intact, with one exception.
Our letter opened with a paragraph that accurately summarized the most bizarre elements of Mr. Friedman’s attack, then reacted with this one-word sentence: “Rubbish.â€That word accurately portrays how we felt about the column. Personally, I felt a stronger word referring to male bovine excrement would have been more appropriate, but my boss tends to express himself more politely than I in these situations.
The Times suggested “rubbish†be changed first to, “We beg to differ.†We objected. The Times then suggested it be changed to, “Not so.†We stood our ground. In the end, the Times refused to let us call the column “rubbish.â€
Why? “It’s not the tone we use in Letters,†wrote Mary Drohan, a letters editor.
What rubbish.
How arrogant.
: This via InOpinion, which finds the rubbish on rubbish.
One has to marvel as the hypocrisy here. I read the GM blog yesterday and found the “fairness” of the NYT lacking. They’ve been great conversationalists thus far!
[...] Update: Jeff Jarvis picked up on this too. He’s more eloquent than I am. [...]
Of course GM could always buy space in the paper to make its position known. There is no reason why the Times has to allow special pleading by a corporation in its letters.
That said, this just highlights why the traditional media are being held in such disdain these days. The latest developments in congress don’t bode well for the internet either.
The idea that giving a company some space to reply when they have been compared to drug felons is “special pleading” is a stretch. There is every reason for the Times to give GM space: basic newspaper journalism for a start. When your paper attacks someone, you give them room to reply. This is a no-brainer.
Jeff:
You’re a smart guy — right 98 percent of the time, including in this instance.
My comment is related to the blog in general. You are becoming exhibit A for what’s bad about the Web. Unlimited space (as opposed to tight newshole) allows people to become verbose. You’re becoming like Charlie Rose — talking too much. Tighten it up a little.
Otherwise … I’m a big fan!
In order for a corporation to be heard in a major US newspaper, they must first purchase pages upon pages of ads. Perhaps that’s the real issue with Pinch & Co.
Hmmm I thought Jarvis was a member of the Friedmann cult. Has that changed?
Most of Friedman’s columns and predictions are utter bs but the likes of Jarvis eat it up as if it were manna from heaven.
Funny, when Tom Friedman supports the Iraq War, its never “NYTimes Supports the IRaq war”. When Tom Friedman, attacks GM, its “NYtimes attacks GM”.
GM could have written an op-ed and got it published. Heck, they could have removed the Rubbish and got it published. This is a non-issue.
But Friedman is right in one respect. Toyota is eating GM”s lunch.
Feinman – “Of course GM could always buy space in the paper to make its position known. There is no reason why the Times has to allow special pleading by a corporation in its letters.”
So I’m a major newspaper and my revenues are slipping. I know, I’ll publish an article that attacks a large corporation and then make them pay to defend themselves in the way that they want. Nice.
I have to agree with those who say that the Times doesn’t have to defend its op-ed writers, or to give space to a commercial enterprise in its letters column. If this had been a news story or even one of the Times’s own editorials then those complaining about the Times’s behavior would have a stronger case.
Having said that, I also agree that the Times was being unfair to GM, but that’s what happens when you own the printing press, you get to chose what you wish to print. That’s why the blogosphere goes ballistic when they can’t get to respond to what they see as inaccurate characterization of their positions in other cases.
And unlike the blogosphere, GM has the money to pay for a rebuttal if it wishes. If this means that money talks, well who said life is fair?
Perhaps if the internet survives the latest attempts to throttle it in congress, it will become a way for those cut out of the traditional media to be heard. Even with a small audience bloggers are starting to be heard.
Many, many years ago, back in the dark ages when there were such things as 16mm film societies, I ran the one at my college and there was this guy who was co-chair of the summer film series– thus my underling though he didn’t see it that way– who had a friend at the student newspaper. And they started attacking me in print, various half-true and blown-out-of-proportion charges, even I don’t remember what. Basically he was trying to use the paper to intimidate me.
So I wrote a letter setting out my side of it. And pointing out the unethical aspect of this friendship. And of course they ran it, but chopped out anything that suggested they had behaved wrongly.
That was a little lesson in journalistic ethics for me. (The reporter, incidentally, ended up at the NPR affiliate in Kansas City.) But I had a lesson for them, too. I blew up my original letter and their edited version on the office Xerox and posted them by the ticket window, highlighting what they’d cut. So every night, a few hundred people had the chance to read how scuzzy and duplicitous the student paper had been.
Looks like GM had to do the same…
Strange parallel: after an elderly man was ejected forcibly removed from a UK Labour Party meeting (under anti-terror laws), his cry of ‘male bovine excrement!’ was re-spun by Labour as ‘rubbish!’
[...] Wow. I didn’t know newspapers negotiated the content of Letters to the Editor. [...]
The fact that it’s GM and people don’t like GM blurs the issue.
A couple of months ago, Paul Krugman wrote a column slamming teacher education, saying that anyone should be allowed to teach, that nothing more was needed beyond knowledge of the subject.
The dean of a prominent ed school wanted to write an op-ed in response. The dean got the same response from the Times.
There are lots and lots of organizations and ideas that get slammed by columnists, and no one gets to offer a different point of view, or question the writer. Except maybe in a tiny, weeny letter that’s been rewritten by edit page editors.
[...] I see that Jeff Jarvis and Mickey Kaus both wrote about the sensational flare-up between the New York Times and GM.*** [...]
[...] As Jeff Jarvis notes, this all makes the Times look not just arrogant, but woefully clueless about how the Web has changed the balance of power when it comes to traditional media — just as clueless as the reporter who wrote a series of emails to Mark Cuban not that long ago and then watched as the billionaire posted them on his blog for everyone to see. As Tom mentions here, the Times is used to having voice, not in giving voice. [...]
another perfect example how the Times has lost touch with reality.
think about it….the place where people supposedly go to have their say in old media does not allow them free speech.
I know there’s no “right” to print what you want in anyone’s paper, but newspapers have certainly tried to sell the idea that the letters column is the appropriate place for free response.
now…as the entire world moves toward even more open and free response via the internet, the Times again proves it doesn’t comprehend what is happening in media as it reveals it has NO intention of giving readers any opportunity to respond as they see fit.
and if you think they’re only editing submissions from big corporations, you are truly out of touch
Would media outlets be more or less likely to attack companies like GM if they had pressed the Dateline episode hard enough to destroy NBC? If I’d been a juror on that one I would gladly have given GM a punitive award large enough to terminate the existence of NBC. Also, why do media outlets so doggedly defend themselves when they are clearly wrong or caught making stuff up? What aspect of a journalist’s formation creates the mindset that it’s OK to stand by a story they know is false?
[...] But the significance of this story as it relates to blogging is striking. Blogging — and taking on the traditional media — isn’t just for the lone pajama-clad blogger anymore. Even a big corporation like GM can join the online conversation and have an impact. Anyone want to bet me that with attention from Kaus, Instapundit, Jeff Jarvis and at least 40 others that more people will now read GM’s letter to the Times via GM’s FYI blog than will ever read it in the Times itself? [...]
[...] http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/06/09/letters-to-the-editor-return-to-sender/ [...]
[...] Being in planes and trains and meetings all day, I haven’t been able to join in the discussion that I’m sure is raging about Tom Friedman’s shock & awe against GM and their jihad back. After he attacked GM, GM couldn’t get a full response as a letter to the editor (what a silly name for it, by the way… isn’t it a letter to the public… but only if it gets published by that editor). So GM retaliated on their blog. And now Friedman fires back from The Times (though some of his bullets hit that pay wall now). It shows what an inadequate medium for debate and discussion a newspaper is. Whichever team you’re rooting for here, there’s no debating that it would be better to hold a fair and equal discussion. That’s happening online. But note that GM links to Friedman but Friedman doesn’t link to GM. In our new etiquette of online discussion, that’s just rude — to the other side and the people some still call the audience. [...]
fyi, GM’s upped the ante with online ads directing people to their blog “to get the facts”. Seen recently on WaPo and ABCnews –
http://adverlicio.us/general_motors_gm_get_the_facts_728×90
Check it out … thoughts? Seems like a dangerous game of chicken to me.
[...] by the New York Times By author I see that Jeff Jarvis and Mickey Kaus both wrote about the sensational flare-up between the New York Times and [...]