Sometimes, the smartest PR strategy is to tell the truth. It happens a lot that, of all the options available, telling the truth is your best choice.
Clients hate that!
“Why the hell am I paying you money if I’m just gonna tell the truth?! I could’ve done that on my own!” They’re disappointed if there’s no smoke, mirrors, or magic act.
Alas, most of the time, a client’s PR options are finite. The “facts on the ground” almost always limit your choices. I can’t “sell” a story that isn’t credible, so reality keeps you grounded — especially in an outcome-based endeavor like PR.
Trust me on this, folks: If you jump headfirst out of a second-story building enough times, you’ll believe in gravity, too.
In 1999’s “Bigger and Blacker” show, Chris Rock declared, “A man is only as faithful as his options.” (And 19 years later, in a wacky coincidence, Rock admitted to cheating on his wife and destroying his marriage. Whoops.)
No comment on the male part, but Rock was absolutely, 100% right if he was talking about PR. The overwhelming majority of the time, we’re limited by our options.
But what happens when there are no limits?
Just as a crazy theoretical, what would happen if the mainstream media were so far up one political party’s [colon] that they believed EVERYTHING it said? No matter how divorced from reality it might be, they still accepted it as gospel.
What then?
Well, then you get something called “cheap fakes.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson have been busy making the media rounds, hawking their tell-all book, “Original Sin.” Yesterday, they broke bread with Bari Weiss. Here’s the link:
What’s especially galling is the post-election gloating of the Biden team: They don’t feel guilty about hiding Biden’s senility from the American people. There’s zero contrition over their attempted Folgers Crystals taste-test swap of President Biden with President Autopen.
Instead, the opposite is true. They’re proud of their lies! So proud, in fact, that they couldn’t resist bragging about it.
Check out this exchange at the 1:19:35 mark:
BARI WEISS: Speaking of fake news and misinformation, you’ll remember that days before the catastrophic debate that we’ve been talking about, The New York Times came out with a story, labeling that the clips of Biden looking sort of lost and disoriented — this is a news story — were “cheap fakes.”
ALEX THOMPSON: I have a good story about this. So, when we were reporting the book, I remember talking to a fairly senior White House person, and they were like — basically made like, yes, he was bad; yes, we shouldn’t have run him again; yes, like, he was really struggling — but they sort of got in my face. They were like, “You guys, like, bought some of our spin, and they specifically mentioned the “cheap fake” stuff. They were like — this person — “We could not” — at least, they were speaking for themselves — they were like, “I could not believe we got those stories placed.” [emphasis added]
Even the brain-dead Biden White House was stunned by the mainstream media’s stupidity!
“I could not believe we got those stories placed” is a PR pro’s gloat when a crappy, idiotic pitch defies the law of gravity and somehow flies. (Yes, I know the feeling: I once landed a sales guru on the cover of Ad Age by claiming he’s so smooth, he could sell hairbrushes to bald guys. If you click on my profile pic, you’ll probably figure out how I came up with the pitch.)
Related: The Revelation of Saint Jake Tapper of CNN
Jake Tapper elaborated on the “cheap fake” con-job at the 1:20:42 mark:
BARI WEISS: …It is our job to distrust politician spin.
JAKE TAPPER: …So the “cheap fake” thing is so fascinating to me, and we — [talks a little about their book’s pitch and planning]. “Cheap fakes” is such an interesting topic. “Cheap fakes” is a term that this Harvard professor or expert on misinformation came up with as a play on “deep fakes.” We all know what deep fakes are: Using technology to make it look as though Bari Weiss is saying something she would never say… “Cheap Fakes” is, it’s too cute by half the term. It’s just meant as a play on deep fakes because it’s not using technology, it’s just, like, editing. So, for example, Joe Biden, at the anniversary of Normandy, is sitting down and they’re announcing Lloyd Austin, and he freezes in place. …Why does he freeze in place? He freezes in place because it is a huge effort for this man to sit down. It is a huge effort for this man to stand up. So he just freezes in place until they’re done introducing Lloyd Austin, and then he sits down. The clip is him just freezing without him sitting down. It is a clip of something weird. It is a clip of a man who is enfeebled. It is not a clip of a man freezing for no reason, and this is one of the reasons why the White House was able to get some reporters — and I would say, not me and not Alex, some reporters — to buy this “cheap fake” thing is because there were edits that they were able to use to say, “Look, it’s not even real,” or “It’s not fair.” When he’s wandering off at the G7 in Italy, he is wandering towards a bunch of paratroopers. That does not make the moment any less weird. It is still strange, and it is still him wandering off, and it is still Prime Minister Maloney bringing him back, but the edit of not showing that he’s actually walking towards… a paratrooper allowed the White House to successfully tell some reporters — I’m not defending the White House here; I just want people to understand I’m not defending it — but I’m saying, having that edit where it was allowed them to sell to Washington Post, New York Times, other newspapers — I believe those two papers; I might be wrong — but some mainstream [media] organizations the idea that these are “cheap fakes.” Now, I didn’t think so. I thought that they were edited, but they were weird moments regardless. I think that that is part of the story of a gullible press and the White House taking advantage of edits that didn’t need to be made to make an argument that went way too far in the White House’s direction, to the point that even the White House people were telling Alex, “I can’t believe you bought it.”
Let’s overlook Jake Tapper’s self-congratulatory back-slapping. (I know it’s annoying, especially after he spent most of the past half-decade carrying water for the Biden White House.) But let’s look at the bigger picture:
The Biden White House now admits to conning the media over “cheap fakes.” So, it beckons the obvious question: How many outlets were stupid and gullible enough to fall for it?
Here’s your list of shame:
CBS News: Misleading Biden videos go viral
NBC News: Biden campaign calls out what it calls ‘cheap fake’ viral videos
MSNBC: Joe on ‘cheap fake videos’
Al Jazeera: White House says Joe Biden is a victim of ‘cheap fakes’
The New York Times: Biden Battles Age Doubts and a Trail of Misleading Videos
The Washington Post: How Republicans used ‘cheap fake’ videos to attack Biden
The Hill: ‘Cheap fake’ Biden videos burst into national spotlight
MSNBC: Misleading GOP videos of Biden are going viral. The fact-checks have trouble keeping up.
Poynter: ‘Cheap fake’ videos, and the phrase itself, take 2024 election’s center stage (Note: This title is also used in a head-scratching PolitiFact “debunking” of these videos, which warned readers: “‘Cheap fake’ videos of President Joe Biden that have been selectively edited or taken out of context to undermine his mental and physical fitness have inundated social media and are the subject of political spin.”)
Newsweek: White House Calls Biden Videos ‘Fake’, Sparking Republican Outrage
Deadline: Joe Biden “Cheap Fake” Videos Parrot GOP Talking Points
News Nation: ‘Cheap fakes,’ explained: How manipulated media hurts candidates
MSNBC: Did you fall for this fake video of Joe Biden at the G7 in Italy?
The Independent: White House fumes at ‘cheap fake’ Biden video
Rolling Stone: ‘Cheap Fakes’: Republicans Target Biden Over His Age With Deceptive Videos
London Evening Standard: White House blasts ‘cheap fake’ videos of Joe Biden
CNN Audio: White House Slams “Cheap Fake” Videos of Biden
The Wrap: The New ‘Cheap Fakes’ and the Coming Presidential Debates
AP News: Seeing is believing? Not necessarily when it comes to video clips of Biden and Trump
The Hill: White House slams ‘bad faith videos that claim to show Biden confused
WIRED: Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Even Bothering With Biden’s Debate Performance
The Daily Beast: The GOP Operative Making Those Viral Frozen Biden Videos
Snopes: The Facts About Biden’s Purported ‘Freeze Up’ (Note: Snopes STILL hasn’t updated this 2024 story about “cheap fakes,” telling readers: “We will update this story if we find or receive any further facts or official statements to add to the article.”)
“I can’t believe you bought it.”
Yeah, I kinda can.
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