With A Juicy Sex Scandal Involving the Governor of New York What Should Have Been The First Move By A Smart Newspaper Marketing Manager? To Buy The Search Words 'Eliot Spitzer' on Google and Yahoo

Philip M. Stone March 12, 2008

With Eliot Spitzer apologizing on live television, but never actually saying for what he was sorry, his wife, Silda, standing by his side and obviously wishing she could be anywhere but there, with the New York Times breaking on its web site the scoop that the New York governor apparently had made use of an international prostitution service, it was left to the smart marketing folks at Newsday who understood very quickly what really needed to get done with this story -- lock up the Eliot Spitzer search term on Google.

And searches on Google seemed to confirm that this was indeed the story the public thirsted for. The New York Times broke the story on its web site at 1:58 p.m. -- by late afternoon, according to Google Trends, searches on words having to do with the scandal accounted for nine of the top 10 “hot trends” words and phrases.

Newsday seemed to get in first with “Eliot Spitzer” search ads, but others soon followed.  It’s a lesson for newspapers that if there is a big story on which they are pulling out all the stops then get in early on wrapping up Google advertising search words.  

As for the story itself, it seems the New York Times really did have this one all to themselves since the Friday before. Journalists for other news organizations in Albany, the state capital, said they had no idea such a story was brewing about the governor’s use of a prostitution ring.

And when the Times felt it had enough solid information to go with its scoop it didn’t hold it until Tuesday’s print edition; it went straight out onto its web site. So yes, the likes of Newsday, the New York Post, the Daily News, broadcast media and all the rest from that moment on had the story, and they were doing everything they could to catch up. But the Times proved once and for all it was serious about its digital policy – no news waits for the print edition and in fact it would seem to have done the newspaper no harm to have gone with the story on the web first.

The newspaper reported that its web site experienced a 60% spike in web traffic for two hours after the story was posted, and Keynote Systems, a company that measures web site performance, said load times which normally took three seconds on the NYT site were taking up to 20 seconds.

The Times said its IT people were kept busy juggling web servers to ensure there was no crash and that is probably another lesson learned from this – if a major breaking story is released on the web site then better make sure the IT people are told about it so they can prepare for the unusual onslaught to follow. A NYT spokeswoman said the only times the site had ever had such overload issues were with 9/11 and when an American Airlines plane crashed in the Borough of Queens.

And one has to be careful if your coverage is linked by the likes of Drudge. He linked to the New York Observer coverage about an hour after the Times broke the story. That link first took the Observer’s site crashing down and once that was fixed it was very slow thereafter. So another lesson learned is to get a heads-up when Drudge links to you so the IT people can start juggling servers.

The PR folks who specialize in catastrophes tried to play this one as a classic. Experience has shown that if someone in the public glare has done wrong the only possible chance of getting away with it is to apologize publicly, and quickly. And so it was that little more than an hour after the Times’ story broke, Spitzer made his 64-second statement with his loyal wife, who looked weary and drawn, at his side.

“I apologize first and most importantly to my family,” he said. “I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.” But he never did tell us what he had done wrong to merit such an apology. Obviously the lawyers and PR people had reached a compromise – get out there soon but don’t say anything that can get you in trouble in court later.

He didn’t take questions but as he left the room reporters yelled out, “Are you resigning, are you resigning?” They never got an answer.

First polls indicate the apology didn’t do the job. A poll Tuesday of 1,000 New Yorkers by SurveyUSA had 67% believing Spitzer should resign and that was up from 58% the day before, so public opinion was moving against him. What seems to really trouble people is that as a federal prosecutor in New York City Spitzer had prosecuted prostitution rings. Such a man knows better than to allegedly have a woman cross a state line for the purposes of prostitution, which if proven in this case could violate the Mann Act and possibly result in a heavy prison sentence.

For more than 24 hours after his statement, Spitzer has been out of site in his luxury Manhattan Apartment. He has hired a big New York law firm and the media has speculated they are trying to make a deal with the feds not to prosecute him in return for his resignation, and he’s not about to give up that resignation card without getting something for it.

And until a deal is made and announced Hillary and Barack are going to continue to find themselves in a most unusual media position – off the front pages.