What is the most despised profession in America? Judging from the amount of public scorn its practitioners receive, you might think the answer would be the law. And yet being a lawyer is still a position of high status in American society, a job that still gives a lawyer’s parents some bragging rights in exchange for the $ 75,000 it takes to get that law-school diploma. (By the way, you always know lawyers of the second rank because they add the ” Esq.” after their names, even though the designation “Esquire” is simply an antiquated way of saying “Mister” and is not conferred by a body of experts, like a doctorate. The most comic use of it is with a woman’s name: “Yours sincerely, Tiffany Rosenberg, Esq.”)
Politician? Again, disliked as a collective, but admired individually. The same is true with the “media,” even those local TV people who thoughtlessly tromp all over the lawns of the homes of the recently bereaved and are made out to be villains in movies and on episodic television shows. (During the recent snowstorm here in Washington, a friend who works for a local news station told me he was picked up and brought to work by citizen volunteers. ” You mean” I asked, “that people volunteered to shuttle the employees of a hugely profitable TV station around town for free?” “Always,” he said. That’s not the sign of a profession people hate.)
Comedians have long told jokes about those intrepid souls who peddle insurance for a living: In Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run, for example, a prisoner on a chain gang who tries to escape is punished by being locked for three days in a hot-box with an insurance salesman. But targeting door-to-door bell ringers is a little like saying “groovy” or listening to the musical stylings of Mantovani.
There is one category of professional that those of us who write and edit for a living despise above all others — those hearty men and women who work in the field called “public relations.” Call them “flacks,” like we do, even though the very term is an act of disrespect. When it comes to dealing with fiacks, all rules of decorum, politeness, even simple courtesy are off.
The flack lives by the unsolicited all. When I was working as the television critic for the New York Post, my phone would ring no fewer than 20 times a day. “Is John there? Hi, this is Hayley from Flack and Flack Public Relations.” (For some reason, they’re usually named Hayley or Tracey or Stacey, I don’t know why.) “I’m just calling to follow up on some material I sent you about Foofur, the Saturday morning cartoon show. It’s really special, you know — it deals with issues, like this week, Foofur learns to recycle. Hey, you know what? Foofur itself is going to be appearing at the mall in Paramus, N.J., next weekend, and we’d love to set up an interview.”
Usually there was one escape hatch offered you from a long and agonizing pitch for something no rational person would actually be interested in. “Are you on deadline?” they might ask. “Yes, yes, on deadline!” I would reply, for the word “deadline” had some mystical power over them. “Oh! Well, then, I’ll call back,” they would say, and release the line.
Soon it became clear what was going on. All the flack had to do was assure her boss that she had made contact with journalists, especially when peddling some impossibly boring material. Later she would write a report in which my name, among others, would appear as someone with whom she had successfully ” followed up,” even if no article actually came out of it.
On the other hand, there are the flacks whose job it is to function as gate- keepers; control freaks who make it difficult, if not impossible, for a journalist to do his job. These are the ones who control access to celebrities or material that is in demand. And instead of the wheedling insistence that characterizes their Foofur brethren, they turn obnoxious and regal, taking on the character of celebrity itself. A friend of mine who works for a news-magazine wanted to write a favorable piece about a television comedienne who would, six months earlier, have died with pleasure to get his call. Instead, the flack put him off for a week before finally explaining to him that she “isn’t really interested in print these days.”
After a while, you begin to learn that the only way to deal with flacks is to hang up on them, almost literally. When Hayley, or Tracey, begins her tap dance, you just have to say, “I’m too busy to hear a pitch” and get off the phone before she can schedule a time to call back. You really have no choice; if you’re too pleasant about it, word will get around, and flacks will look forward to calling you. That would be like letting the world of unsolicited telephone salesmen know that you just love getting their calls in the middle of dinner. The consequences for your sanity could be disastrous.
JOHN PODHORETZ
