Don't Take It Serious

Michael Hedges May 10, 2008

Oh, but, there's so much to take seriously in the media world today. It's just a mess. So when those meetings and reports are endlessly dour it's time to bring in the guy with the funny hat.

“Who better to help guide us into the future than a guy in charge of amusement parks?” said Tribune Company CEO Sam Zell in a statement (May 9) announcing the appointment of Mark Shapiro to the Tribune board. Shapiro is president and CEO of Six Flags, the amusement park company. “This company’s been on a rollercoaster ride the last few years.” Haven’t we all.

I don’t know Sam Zell, but I’ve heard the stories. I don’t know Mark Shapiro at all. But I do know, slightly, Randy Michaels who, also in the past week, was named COO of the Tribune Company. Randy will wear funny hats to the meetings, which says nothing about his seriousness or competitiveness. It does say everything about his sense of perspective.

But, seriously, I have my own problems. In a few days time I’ll either close down followthemedia.com or breath a sigh of relief and live to fight another day. It, too, has been a rollercoaster ride.

In the last four years of writing and producing followthemedia.com I’ve met, talked with and hung around a wide swath of media people and people who follow the media. If years, decades really, working in media hadn’t jaded my perspective enough, stepping outside to look inside has been wonderful…in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way. Be grateful for each moment, media people. You do something special.

It’s impossible not to notice that media people with ‘perspective’ are also those with a sense of humor. And these are the winners, the creators, the believers. That’s not to say that grumpy media people don’t find success. It’s just that I’ve never met a media person possessing a reasonable sense of humor failing.

Much of my inspiration as a writer comes from Esquire columnist Stanley Bing, the pen name of Gil Schwartz. I was a junior executive memo writer for a rather large broadcasting company when he wrote Crazy Bosses. The book is a hugely hilarious look at the types of nut cases who run companies. I was working with one particular senior guy who was ALL OF THEM. It changed my memo writing style and, too, I started changing jobs more frequently. And 11 firings later, I’m in Switzerland trying to write half as well as Stanley Bing.

All media people in Switzerland are serious. All Swiss people are serious. It’s genetic and some actually laugh about it. You must never refer to a Swiss person as ‘funny’ because the word translates in Swiss-German as ‘odd.’ Two of the funniest, not oddest, people I know work for the International Committee of the Red Cross and regularly go to places like Darfur. You’ve got to have perspective.

The media people I’ve met in Europe with the best sense of humor, and perspective, are, the French and the Russians. Both live in Stanley Bing’s world: crazy bosses. French television people, in particular, keep their perspective because they’re always aware that being aware is often a matter of what you wear. And if the stress mounts, go on strike. Russian media people take great pride in making their bosses crazy by showing up for work.

Spanish radio people work hard and long hours; so long in fact they often don’t get to work before noon. That’s perspective! There is no north-south divide in keeping a good sense of humor at work. From Norway to Latvia and Estonia there are little pockets of perspective. Sometimes rather dark.

There’s a little humor in Germany, in radio, television and sometimes the publishing business. But mostly it’s rather angry. Fifth generation family businesses often get that way. UK media people suffer the most from a lack of perspective. It’s the ‘island’ thing. UK newspaper people seem to be coming around. It can’t get any worse so do something a little crazy. But only a little.

Also an ‘island’ is Brussels. Considering the vast quantity of media attachments and media releases the central core of European regulation shows no sense of humor and little perspective. This, however, creates great opportunity for a select few, not to forget one or two Commissioners, to occasionally throw a wonderfully insightful twist into that deadly routine place.

Most European media people are at their grumpiest when forced to deal with ‘those people’ from then other side of the Atlantic. It’s less the case in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Go to Dubai Media City where everybody works in an amusement park.

Sam Zell and Randy Michaels may – or may not – have the right idea about changing the course of US newspapers or, even, the whole of US media. They will, however, pursue it with vigor, perspective and humor. For them, there is no failure. What a concept!