Oh, Oh Omarosa

The controversy over Omarosa Manigault Newman is, among other things, a callback to days when TV was king and the electronic media could single-handedly drive a news story.  Indeed, until the President of the United States described Omarosa as a “dog” on Twitter, social media and the print press had done little to advance the narrative.

Unfortunately, the Omarosa news bomb, coming on the heels of the Stormy Daniels circus, is a good example of why so many people believe the media traffics in “fake news.”  That term means many different things to many different people, of course.  It originated as a description for entirely fictional stories planted by Russia on Facebook during the 2016 election.  Then President Trump seized on it to deride mostly accurate media coverage he doesn’t like.  But for many people, “fake news” is now a catch-all reference to biased, misleading, or just plain ridiculous reporting.

Television news, with its contradictory need to either boil down a complicated story to a few minutes on the evening news, or expand a few key facts into multiple hours of coverage on the 24-hour news networks, has always been prone to trivialization, bias, and over-simplification.  And the Trump presidency, which has compelled the media to take sides, has only exacerbated it.

Whether you think television news is fake depends almost entirely on your politics and what channel you’re watching.  If you’re a liberal you think Fox News is nothing but fake news and if you’re a conservative you’re convinced the rest of the TV landscape, starting with but not limited to MSNBC, is entirely agenda-driven in the other direction.

The Omarosa contretemps shows how far the profession of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite has fallen.  This is a woman who rose to fame as a villainess on a reality TV show.  Until two weeks ago she was considered a national joke and unworthy of serious consideration.

And yet there she was on “Meet The Press,” once the destination for prime ministers, potentates, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairmen, political candidates, and other worthy but slightly dull newsmakers.  And there she was on the prestige morning news shows.  And there she was even on the staid and ever-so-proper “PBS NewsHour.”  In the blink of an eye, she was transformed from a nutcase into a serious commentator on the Trump presidency.

The media justifies giving Omarosa and her tell-all book the star treatment by saying she’s a former senior White House advisor who can provide insight into President’s Trump’s views on race.

Yet the idea that Omarosa was an important White House official is dubious at best.  She was the communications director the White House Office of Public Liaison, which is usually a dumping ground for true believers who theoretically gin up support among special interest groups.  To be the communications director for this department is hardly working at the pinnacle of power.

As for the rationale that Omarosa can now finger Trump as a racist, well, what can she tell us that we don’t already know?  Half of America already believes that he’s an outright racist and doesn’t need Omarosa’s verification to solidify their views.  The other half thinks that when you call Trump a racist you are also calling THEM racists and even the release of a tape of him saying a racial epithet won’t change their minds.

Ah, the tapes! Now we come to the crux of what makes this a great TV story – not an important story, but a compelling piece of tabloid trash that has been elevated to a media sensation.  After all, who doesn’t get a frisson of excitement when listening to a surreptitiously taped conversation even if we learn nothing new?

Omarosa has played her part well – stringing out her story by selectively leaking these secret recordings.  But her biggest news hook has been her claim that the long-rumored tape of Donald Trump uttering the N-word actually does exist. Or that she heard the tape herself. Or that she heard him say it himself. Whatever.  Something bad.  What’s striking about this claim is that on one of the very tapes she released from 2016, she is heard asserting to her colleagues that the N-word tape is real (see video below).

In other words, despite believing he said such a thing she remained on the campaign two years ago and even defended him against allegations of racism.  As far as I can see, the only reason she changed her mind from thinking he was not a racist to thinking he was is that she got fired.

This focus on whether this tape exists has overshadowed a much more powerful Omarosa claim: that the president’s mental skills have deteriorated, an assertion she backs up by comparing Trump’s cognitive skills on “The Apprentice” to what they are now.

Everyone has already made us his or her mind as to whether Donald Trump is a racist, but an allegation that he has dementia is a line of attack that could potentially peel off wavering supporters.  Yet once again Donald Trump is lucky with his enemies.  Omarosa and the news media are not only even less respected than he is but they can’t even muster the one argument that could really hurt him.

 

I Just Don’t Get Facebook Advertising

About three scandals and one stock market plunge ago, Facebook launched an advertising campaign to apologize for fake news, privacy breaches, spam, and other social media offenses.  This lovely ad promised that they’d fix these problems and get the platform back to its original purpose.

The ad was very effective and even made me choke up a little.  No surprise there, because I’ve found that the big tech companies produce the most compelling advertising.  I’ve also loved every Google ad.

But here’s the thing.  When Facebook wanted to apologize to a large audience, it ran a TELEVISION ad.  Facebook controls a huge amount of the country’s online advertising inventory but when the chips were down it used the same platform used by Texaco, Norelco, and Frosted Flake in the 1960’s:  the one-minute TV spot.

Facebook undoubtedly knew that limiting its apology ads to the online world would have minimal impact.  Successful advertising requires good storytelling – through words and images – and the online world is generally unsuited for that.

Online advertising can be effective for transactional messages (i.e., “to buy this razor now click on this link”) but not so effective for traditional brand ads.  Google ads I understand because I can see the value in buying prime space during product searches, but Facebook I don’t get.  And yet major ad agencies have twisted themselves inside out to shift their focus to Facebook.  What gives?

I ask this question as a Facebook stockholder myself, albeit a very tiny shareholder.  I certainly do not regret the huge run-up in the Facebook stock price since its IPO.  (What I do regret is that I didn’t buy a hundred times more shares!) But I don’t really understand it.  I admit this as someone outside the ad industry and would welcome feedback from insiders who can produce evidence on the usefulness of Facebook ads.

I am not among those Facebook users who get wigged out by the company sharing my personal data with advertisers.  In fact, I prefer it because I’d rather see ads that are relevant to me.  I’m just not sure if it’s that effective.  When I look at my Facebook page today I see an ad for L.L. Bean.  Fair enough. I’ve been buying apparel from L.L. Bean since the days when you had to fill out a form from their catalog and mail it back to them.  But I am so familiar with L.L. Bean that a Facebook ad will not sway me in the least to purchase again.

The “sponsored posts” in my Facebook news feed seem somewhat more compelling.  I usually just blip over them, but for the sake of this column I just went back and took a close look at what’s there and here are the first four sponsored posts.  Offers from:

• SeaVees, apparently a laceless canvass sneaker. I probably wouldn’t buy one, but it’s not crazy for them to think I might.
• Allbirds.com, another sneaker company.
• The Sundance clothes catalog. Again, I have bought jewelry for my wife from Sundance but am unlikely to do so again until Christmas and I won’t decide that based on a suggested post.
• Vanity Fair magazine, offering a one-year subscription for $8. This is more like it.  I would actually contemplate this offer but already get too many magazines at home so used my willpower to decline.

So at least one of the four suggested ads piqued my interest.  Is that a good rate of return even if there’s not a sale?  I’ll leave that to the analysts to debate.

It’s probably unfair to say Facebook advertising is ineffective based on a handful of ads at one moment in time.  I am rarely moved to go out and buy whatever product is shown on TV either, although I am much more likely to at least see a TV ad, since I usually sit through TV advertising but almost always scroll past those suggested posts on Facebook.

I also wonder how Facebook makes money given how seemingly cheap their ads are.  The company recently reported that the Russians have tried to interfere in the 2018 mid-terms by placing 150 political ads.  The cost of those ads?  $11,000. At that price, you can’t really blame Putin.  Even I, as cheap as I am, would spend $11,000 if I thought I could affect the outcome of the upcoming elections.

Although I’m a skeptic about Facebook effectiveness in promoting big brands I am a big believer in what they can do on behalf of non-profits, nearby cultural programs, and local businesses.  I’m on the board of a small nonprofit and have seen the value of raising awareness through targeting a few thousand potential donors.  I’ve also attended concerts and art shows that I’ve learned about on Facebook.

Unfortunately there’s not much money in promoting non-profits and small local businesses. Still Facebook, has convinced the major brands they need to be on this platform.  Will this hold? Maybe.  It says something about our political climate that Facebook is more in trouble for allegedly helping Donald Trump become president than for not being an effectively advertising vehicle.