A&E's 'Duck Dynasty' Stunt is a Textbook Example of Media Manipulation | Hacker News Reader

A&E's 'Duck Dynasty' Stunt is a Textbook Example of Media Manipulation

benhebert.com

33 pointsmemset18 comments

Sorry but I've worked in crisis PR, and this article doesn't jibe at all with my experience. This statement in particular rings false: "If for one second you think that Phil Robertson of ‘Duck Dynasty’ isn’t coached by a public relations team prior, you’re an idiot."

I'm sure that Phil Robertson has gotten a lot of PR support over the years. I've seen it happen over and over again though: someone gets used to receiving only positive coverage and gets overly confident about press interviews, and then refuses formal media training. Amazingly, things can go great for years... until that one disastrous interview where everything changes. Then every interview after that focuses on that issue for the next few years. Then a PR team gets called into manage the newly formed crisis situation.

That's probably what happened here: he had gotten used to getting tons of positive coverage, and he started to think that he had a handle on the press. So he (and his team) start to do less and less preparation and due diligence for each interview, until this disaster occurred.

Yeah, that was my thought too. Two thoughts actually:

1) I don't doubt that he got extensive coaching from a PR team. I do doubt that he followed their advice. History is littered with the bleached bones of the reputations of people who walked into an interview thinking they knew how to deal with the media better than their PR person did. There's no shortage of cases of people with great PR support going "off-book," either impulsively or on purpose, and getting a very different reaction than they expected.

2) The fact that A&E fired the guy argues very strongly that this was not a pre-planned stunt. That's the sort of thing companies do when they are getting unexpected heat from the public and the execs are panicking. If they'd planned this they wouldn't have fired him right away -- they'd have wrung it for even more attention by sending him out on an "apology tour" or the like, so he could get an hour on Oprah's couch and then remind all her viewers when to tune in to Duck Dynasty.

Just look at Michael Richards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Richards#Laugh_Factory_...

That Laugh Factory incident is one of the 4 main things he is known for on his Wikipedia page.

I'm sure he was told many times throughout his life just how wrong what he said actually was. And he proceeded to talk that way not just to a single interviewer but a large audience.

Reading this article made me realize how disconnected I am from popular culture. I only know of Duck Dynasty because my relatives watched it while I was visiting them. All I know about Miley Cyrus is that she's a singer. Until recently, I thought Hannah Montana was a different person. I have no idea what the Dolphin's "Jonathan Martin versus Richie Icognito feud" is, but I'm guessing it's related to the football team. Finally, I only know about George Zimmerman because a friend told me to watch the South Park episode he was in. That's also how I found out that there was a World War Z movie starring Brad Pitt.

If you want to have more free time and be a happier person, cancel your cable subscription. Unfollow Twitter users who talk about pop culture and news. Unsubscribe from subreddits that are full of this tripe. (Or even better, stop visiting Reddit.)

If you're in your mid-20's, you've got about 2700 weeks left on this planet. If you want to minimize future regret, spend them on more worthwhile things.

The people who concern themselves with the things you list here are likely to be or may become your customers. If you don't understand them then you will never be able to sell to them. There's nothing wrong with taking time away from the monitor and getting out to see a movie or talk to another human once in a while. Perspective is a wonderful thing.

Sorry to be rude, but that's a rationalization. The best way to understand potential customers is to talk to them. If you can't talk to them, there are surveys or other methods. But keeping abreast of pop culture is the worst market research you can do besides consulting a Ouija board. "How do you know people want what you're making?" "Well I watch a lot of Duck Dynasty..."

A better argument could be made for using pop culture as common ground when socializing. Although in my experience, if someone brings up a current event that I don't know about, they're usually happy to explain it. And there are lots of ways to socialize that don't involve pop culture or current events. My favorites are games and sports (playing them, not watching).

Two sides of the same coin; talking and understanding go hand in hand. You don't have to participate in it, you don't even have to _get_ it, but being informed is what we're getting at here. And of course there are more reasons to be involved in your surrounding culture other than selling to people. Not knowing prior that you were into sports and games, one could incorrectly assume you meant a person's 20's were all about serious business, so framing a response in that context would make sense. I get all my pop culture info in the 5 minutes waiting in line at the grocery checkout reading the covers of the tabloids. It's kind of surprising you wouldn't accidentally pick up some info in passing. And by the way, World War Z was pretty good, I would recommend it.

if you think the only reason you'd want to be in the same culture as most people who live near you is because they "are likely to be or may become your customers"... jesus, i don't even know how to respond.

yeesh, the only reason it's worth understanding the things other people care about is to better understand how to sell things to them?

Jesus...A&E was so desperate to get attention that it risked a boycott of its most popular show ever? How does this even make sense?

Oh wait, I can take a guess from the OP's beginning:

My initial response is who the f&# cares.*

Ah, the fact that the OP doesn't care about it might be an indicator that he doesn't really know much about the details...I mean, if he hasn't heard of Duck dynasty, then it must not be very important, and so this must be a stunt in order to get attention, right.

How does this bullshit even get up voted?

<< Here's what happened: A wealthy religious Southern man told GQ an interview that he believes homosexuality is a sin, >>

That's not all he said though. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynas...

There was also this incredibly ignorant statement: "Phil On Growing Up in Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Louisiana: “I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

It's amazing how little coverage has focused on his ignorant comments about race, versus his graphic comments on how homosexuality is wrong.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/the-real...

> Target getting hacked: an act of cyber terrorism performed in the United States by an unknown enemy

Ugh, lets "not feed the monster" indeed...

I feel like the continual release of more details about the illegal NSA surveillance to which we've all been subjected for years is more likely the topic from which someone is hoping to distract attention than the Target issue.

I felt like the media did a decent job of portraying the event as a robbery. But that's probably a result of my choices in what news outlets I use.

Of course it is. And though I've thought indignantly about how it can be prevented, I don't think its possible. There are infinitely more undiscerning, passive and sensation-seeking news consumers than there are involved and informed ones.

So the former will continue to get played (they may even be enjoying it), while the latter will keep on lamenting it (like we are right now).

I know someone in the reality TV industry. And all the current reality TV shows absolutely envy DD. It is the golden standard and few can match it (and it isn't for the lack of trying), many heads are thinking how to capture and replicate that.

These guys were entrepreneurs before A&E, right? Content is king. At this point they don't need A&E. Get all the fans on an email list and they're set for life.

That first sentence needs an editorial once-over.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com