Plain dealings

I have gotten two phone calls from artists about The Cleveland Plain-Dealer; should we do interviews with the new writer, they both asked, separately, we heard the orchestra got the last writer fired.

Now, I love the artists I work with dearly, but they are rarely up on their industry gossip. The fact that this news made it to some of the top performing artists in the world and sincerely distressed them is...interesting.

Hard-hitting journalist that I am (not), I e mailed The Cleveland Orchestra's publicity department and asked if I could interview a representative for this blog. I'm not especially interested in this drama from an ethical point of view: I don't think the orchestra "got" Don Rosenberg "fired". I am, however, fascinated from a PR standpoint (surprise!). Everyone THINKS the orchestra got Don Rosenberg fired, and frankly, that's all that matters.

This was the response I got - not unexpectedly - to my query:

Thanks Amanda, but I really think it would be better to make a request to The Plain Dealer.  This was their decision and a personnel matter for them, not for The Cleveland Orchestra. 

The wording here is intriguing. Yes, this is a personnel matter for The Plain Dealer, but it is a publicity matter for The Cleveland Orchestra. As I said, what actually happened doesn't matter, but how the orchestra administrators handled it does. They handled it badly, and consequently lost control.

On September 18, classical music critic Tim Smith broke ("  ") the news on the Baltimore Sun blog. The first paragraph of his post objectively states the situation. The second assumes that Rosenberg was fired because he had criticized music director Franz Welser-Möst for years. Tim Smith can be as subjective as his wants on his/his employer's blog. If his editors didn't think he had the information to back up his assumption, one figures they wouldn't have let him post it.

[Side question: When newspapers have blogs, are writers' blog entries subjected to changes by their editors, or is that reserved for their print writing?] 

The response (in the Comment field) was tremendous, as comments from the likes of Tim Page, Scott Cantrell and...wait...what's this?...Gary Hanson - Executive Director - Cleveland Orchestra??? popped up.  Imagine me doing my best Dwight Schrute impression when I ask: "Question: Who let the executive director of The Cleveland Orchestra comment on blogs?"

In recent days, the music writers' blogsphere has been rife with assumptions and even accusations that the management of The Cleveland Orchestra engineered personnel changes at Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer. These accusations are false.

I want to set the record straight: I was completely surprised by the news last week that Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg has been re-assigned and will no longer cover The Cleveland Orchestra for the newspaper.

A half dozen critics have called or emailed me this week asking if I met with the newspaper's editors to lodge complaints. The answer is I have never met with them to protest Donald Rosenberg's opinions. In the normal course of business during my tenure with the Orchestra, I have spoken with every editor, past and present, about the newspaper's coverage. In those meetings I have delivered compliments and concerns about their news and feature coverage as well as their editorial positions and decisions. But in every case I have also said, very explicitly, that the Orchestra's management understands and respects the paper's and the critic's role in expressing opinion about our artistic activities. And whether or not we agree with the opinion we fully accept and support their right and responsibility to publish it.

Donald Rosenberg has written about The Cleveland Orchestra for decades. I worked directly with him for many years, especially during my early tenure here as Director of Public Relations. In that role, I opened the Orchestra archives to him for research on his comprehensive history of the Orchestra "Second to None." I very much enjoyed the productive and professional relationship we've shared. I appreciate and admire a great deal of his work on the subject of the Orchestra and I am grateful for his dedication to regular and comprehensive classical music coverage. Over the years we have agreed and we have disagreed. All the same I will miss working with him.

Gary Hanson
Executive Director
Cleveland Orchestra

I - and anyone with brain - know that blogs are important for publicity in 2008. That said, include bloggers in your official releases, do not defend yourself in their comment fields. Hanson went on to "comment" on Steve Smith's blog, Night After Night. A unique comment on Steve's unique take on the situation? Nope, the exact same comment that was posted on the Baltimore Sun blog. Gary Hanson and orchestra publicity team, allow me to bring your attention to Merriam-Webster dot com:

¹com·ment

Pronunciation:

\ˈkä-ˌment\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Middle English, from Late Latin commentum, from Latin, invention, from neuter of commentus, past participle of comminisci to invent, from com- + -minisci (akin to ment-, mens mind) -- more at mind

Date:

14th century

1: commentary2: a note explaining, illustrating, or criticizing the meaning of a writing3 a: an observation or remark expressing an opinion or attitude <critical comments> b: a judgment expressed indirectly <sees the film as a comment on modern values>

Commenting implies that you've read or listened to something and are reacting to it. The two Smith posts are different; you can't post the same comment!! It seems Hanson and The Publicists got their passports to the blogosphere circa the same time Sarah Palin got hers to the rest of the world.

Moving on. In my friend Greg's Sandow's Saturday article in The Wall Street Journal, he very astutely writes that The Cleveland Orchestra may now have a national PR problem beyond the (mis?)conception that they got a critic fired; this situation may affect their critical reviews going forward:

Nationally, things might look even worse. This whole affair highlights something the orchestra surely doesn't want widely publicized -- that Mr. Welser-Möst has detractors. Who now won't know that? And what will critics write? The orchestra tours every year. Won't critics listen with even more critical ears? They're primed, now, to listen for trouble. And, if only unconsciously, they might want to support Mr. Rosenberg.

I sincerely disagree with Greg on his later point, however:

What should the orchestra do? It needs, in my view, to restore its integrity, or rather the perception of it, which has been damaged, whatever the reality might be. Mr. Hanson and Mr. Bogomolny, joined, ideally, by Mr. Welser-Möst (hard as this could be for him), might consider publicly asking the paper to reinstate Mr. Rosenberg.

If the party line is THE ORCHESTRA WAS NOT INVOLVED, then why should they get involved at this point? They should have issued one statement: "We regret the news the Mr. Rosenberg will no longer be consistently reviewing the orchestra, but look forward to his perspective on the arts throughout Cleveland" right at the beginning. No further comment. No posting on blogs, no calling for Rosenberg's reinstatement; if you weren't involved you weren't involved! Pull it together.

I've had the extreme good fortune of working with the reigning queen of classical music PR, Mary Lou Falcone, on Renée Fleming's recent Four Last Songs disc. The woman is in control. With every press request, you can see her coolly thinking through the ramifications - immediate and long-term, positive and negative - of each potential story. This is not scheming or spinning: it is simply clear-headed thinking before acting.  When Tim Smith implied (err, stated) that The Cleveland Orchestra was to blame, Gary Hanson and the publicity department should have stopped, drafted a laissez-faire statement, and released it calmly to bloggers and newspapers alike. Instead, they went into a kind of frantic damage-control mode, and in doing so damaged themselves.