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Gini Dietrich

Trust Me I’m Lying: How One Person is Hurting an Entire Industry

By: Gini Dietrich | July 23, 2012 | 
236

Last week, some news came to a head. Some very disappointing news that makes me really wonder about people.

A new author, Ryan Holiday, has written a book called, “Trust Me, I’m Lying.” And, with it, a gaggle of blog posts and articles are coming out about how reporters and bloggers have been duped by the 25-year-old claiming to be a PR professional, but who is instead a “media manipulator.”

Let’s Start from the Beginning

I don’t disagree with the premise of his thinking. He says journalists and bloggers are manipulated because of the 24/7 news cycle, which doesn’t allow for fact checking and source investigating that it did of the past.

In a recent Forbes article, he wrote:

At top of the pantheon of the media manipulators, of course, sits the late Andrew Brietbart. “Feeding the media is like training a dog,” he once said, “You can’t throw an entire steak at a dog to train it to sit. You have to give it little bits of steak over and over again until it learns.” And learned it did: they followed his lead exactly in the Shirley Sherrod story, and continue to fall for the manipulations of his student, James O’Keefe, who has ravaged NPR, ACORN, and many other liberal organizations.

And then you have influential bloggers, such as Michael Arrington, founder and former editor of TechCrunch, who once said, “Getting it right is expensive, getting it first is cheap.”

Things are now written and published based on – what I call ego-driven metrics – pageviews and number of clicks, regardless of it being right or not.

It’s easy to get sucked into those metrics. After all, organizations are getting funding and making money based on eyeballs. And they feel good. Really good.

But that Doesn’t Make it Right

Along the way, he began to use Help a Reporter Out (HARO), the brain child of Peter Shankman (who later sold it to Vocus).

HARO is a free service that puts sources in touch with media outlets. A journalist or blogger sends a query and people who have expertise on that topic email back.

Holiday decided to respond to each and every query he got, whether or not he knew anything about the topic. Nor did he do it alone. He enlisted an assistant to use his name in order to field as many requests as humanly possible.

He expected it to take a few months of meticulous navigation, but he found himself with more requests than he could handle in a matter of weeks.

According to the Forbes article,

On Reuters, he became the poster child for “Generation Yikes.” On ABC News, he was one of a new breed of long-suffering insomniacs. At CBS, he made up an embarrassing office story, at MSNBC he pretended someone sneezed on him while working at Burger King. At Manitouboats.com, he offered helpful tips for winterizing your boat. The capstone came in the form of a New York Times piece on vinyl records.

But he’s an expert on none of these things and, in fact, doesn’t suffer from insomnia or collect vinyl records.

Spin Sucks

This guy is neither a PR professional or a communicator.

He is a liar.

In his own words:

I am a media manipulator. My job is to use the media to make people do or think things they otherwise would not. People like me are there, behind the curtain, pulling the puppet strings.

Yes, the 24/7 news cycle is a beast. Yes, there are free services, like HARO, that make it easier for journalists to source their stories without a ton of elbow grease. Yes, deadlines make it harder and harder to fact check and get it right.

But it’s still the job of the journalist or blogger to do exactly that and use services, such as HARO, as a starting point. And it’s the job of the PR professional to be ethical, not lie, or “pull puppet strings.”

Our industry is not regulated by a governing body so it’s up to us to self-police. Do we really want to be known as liars? Or will you join me in being ethical and shouting from the rooftops, “Spin Sucks!!”?

About Gini Dietrich


Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm. She is the lead blogger here at Spin Sucks and is the founder of Spin Sucks Pro. She is the co-author of Marketing in the Round and co-host of Inside PR. Her second book, Spin Sucks, is due out in November 2013

224 comments
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shelholtz
shelholtz like.author.displayName 1 Like

Hey, Gini. I've left this same post over on the Inside PR blog:

 

I'm so glad you covered Ryan Holiday and his book. Since he's getting less critical coverage elsewhere, it's important that we who believe in the ethical side of PR speak up. Neville and I addressed Holiday on FIR #661 on July 23 (http://bit.ly/P13Wci) after I heard him interviewed on the Mixergy podcast (http://mixergy.com/ryan-holiday-interview/) by someone who thought his tactics were great. I also wrote a post suggesting that the ease with which someone like Holiday can manipulate the media gives rise to a greater need for our profession to examine certification (http://bit.ly/M9roSH). But what you may be most interested in is the Google+ Hangout on Air that John Jantsch moderated between Holiday and HARO founder Peter Shankman; David Meerman Scott and I sat in as commentators. You'll find it here: http://youtu.be/s4a0Vrk4ZEw

 

Thanks again for calling this kind of behavior out for what it is.

MightyCaseyMedia
MightyCaseyMedia like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @shelholtz thanks for sharing the video - haven't had the chance to watch it all the way thru (yet), but the cast of characters makes it #1 on my to-view list!

ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator

 @shelholtz He was on NPR on Monday night and Mr. D said to me, "Have you heard of this guy?" It's kind of fascinating. I went OFF. To the point that he said, "OK, OK. I see your point." And that's the issue...people not in the industry think this is what we all do. It really, really bothers me.

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shelholtz
shelholtz

 @ginidietrich Brooke Gladstone took him at face value on NPR's On the Media. I think those who already have a negative view of PR will just see this as validation for their perspective.

MightyCaseyMedia
MightyCaseyMedia

 @ginidietrich  @shelholtz I think that it's WAY past time to talk about certifications with teeth. A close friend has every cert the industry offers, and is a true guru of ethical PR. However, he bailed on the industry over the last decade because the spin bullsh*t just got too deep. PR is literally killing itself by letting dbs like Holiday turn lying in to a personal victory. 

gcj
gcj

When your income stream is attacked, I can see why you'd respond emotionally and dishonestly. Where has Ryan represented himself as anything other than a manipulator?

ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator

 @gcj The problem is that the PR industry has a perception of being liars and spin doctors. He's perpetuating that perception and creating the illusion that that's what we all do. I've never lied to a reporter, manipulated a relationship, or created a story that didn't exist. There are PR professionals (many, many of us) who are extremely ethical and take very careful care of the relationships we've spent our entire careers developing.

As for the income stream statement, I don't understand what you mean. Are you talking about me and being emotionally and dishonest in this blog post? 

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RyanHoliday
RyanHoliday

 @ginidietrich Gini, I'm not "perpetuating" a perception, I'm saying it straight out: marketers control and dictate too much of the online news cycle and bloggers go along with it. They're both liars and spin doctors. This is what I have observed and I'm showing it to everyone.I think GCJ is referring to this Upton Sinclair quote: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."I don't take it personally, but that's why people (such as yourself) are missing the point of the book. I didn't say you were a liar and I think you know that. I said that there is a lot of lying going on though and the public deserves to know about it. 

TheJackB
TheJackB like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @RyanHoliday I am not impressed by disingenuous and self congratulatory statements that aren't predicated on altruistic intentions.

 

Not everyone lies or intentionally goes along with lies. Your willingness to tar and feather is troubling.

 

You aren't the first to question or try to "shed light" on what happens behind the scenes. Although you are the first I remember who described themselves as a manipulator.

 

Words mean something to me so I don't know if your definition of manipulator fits into any one of the three below

 

To tamper with or falsify for personal gain:

To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously

 To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner:

 

What I can say is I wouldn't want to be described as a manipulator. If people choose to align with a position I support I hope it is because they are persuaded to do so.

 

Furthermore the public has a personal responsibility to check the information they receive as well. I take it from your position that you think the public is filled with a bunch of people who live in lollipop land and as a result cannot think for themselves.

 

Perhaps I am wrong about all this and I just misunderstand but my impression isn't of a good Samaritan trying to help others. Really it reminds me of the guy who tries to convince you not to play 3 Card Monty while simultaneously lifting your wallet out of your pocket.

 

But maybe I don't know anything because everyone knows that Generation X is old and stupid.

 

 @ginidietrich 

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Brigitte
Brigitte

Gini - Did you read the book? It agrees with all the conclusions you draw here.

ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator

 @Brigitte I started to read it and I couldn't get through it. Just the table of contents makes me nuts (the tactics about working with bloggers? Give me a break). The issue I have it not his premise about journalists - I think people, by nature, are lazy and that means even some journalists too. What I don't want to see happening is people going out saying they're PR pros (and if you read his introduction, he claims to be one) and perpetuating the perception that we're all liars, spin doctors, or media manipulators. That's the entire reason this blog exists...to fight that perception. 

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Frank_Strong
Frank_Strong like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Brigitte Brigitte, his book does not agree with the conclusions drawn here, nor does the large body of content he has written and published all over the Web. It made me puked in my mouth a little bit. 

 

He advocates lying and manipulation as a legitimate tactic.  His lies using HARO was and is a stunt to sell books.  And his book publicist?  I have a few pitches that found their way to a special inbox folder for future reference. Juicy.  Memes.  Gawker.  Mmmm.

 

An experiment? An expose?   Please.  99.9% of people don't lie about snots and vinyl records. He hurts PR pros. He hurts journalists.   He hurts small businesses.  He hurts himself.

 

The problem with believing someone who may be lying, about lying, to promote a book about lying, is that it’s hard to know if there’s any truth to the story.

 

His antics are juvenile, like smashing pumpkins at Halloween or graffiti under a highway bridge. Unfortunately, he is selling books, but proving Gini's headline to be true:  hurting the industry.

 

Lying for sales is like a crack high -- it's intense, it's short-lived and the crash is very hard.  

Latest blog post: 7 essential principles to succeed in PR

Brigitte
Brigitte like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Frank_Strong While he may well be lying (and not knowing is part of the fun, isn't it?), Holiday wrote the book to expose the gaps in the system that allow people like him to take advantage. I find his stories believable, based on my own experiences with the press (writing press releases that I see printed "as is" in newspapers, etc).

 

99% of people don't lie about vinyl records, it's true, but people are out there lying about issues of national importance. Holiday's book is similar to the hackers who break into a government program and then tell the government, so they can fix their flaws. 

 

Have you read the book?

Brigitte
Brigitte like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Frank_Strong  Thank you for this comment. I was taken aback by your previous message, but I do understand this is a loaded topic -- and you had no reason to know or believe I'm an ethical practitioner without a hand in this issue. I'm sure my comments came across as irresponsibly flip.

 

Here's something about my background that you couldn't have known. Before working for Gini, I specialized in public affairs. I saw, firsthand, how our public figures manipulated the press to further their legislation, candidate or issue. My ideals hopelessly crushed, I got out. Frankly, that's why I enjoyed Holiday's book. It exposes a lot of the problems with the press. The HARO stunt aside, one of the odd points of the book is the obviously high esteem Holiday has for the traditional press. He lays on the blame solely on bloggers, while my view is more nuanced.

 

Does our industry and the media get a black eye in all this? You bet. But I think it's a deserved one. For every 5 ethical practitioners, there's someone like Ryan out there gaming the system.

 

As a person who's job it is to work with the press, I don't trust it. And that makes me very, very sad.

Frank_Strong
Frank_Strong like.author.displayName 1 Like

@ginidietrich@Brigitte

Perhaps, I've jumped to a conclusions.  I've done that before. I'll probably do it again.  My comments above do a poor job of articulating what I mean. They start to get personal quickly.   That's not typically my style; not one of my finer moments. I apologize if I offended you, Brigitte.  

 

As for the question about journalistic ethics --  I don't believe for a second this was an altruistic experiment to expose some weakness.  Rather it was a deliberate ploy to gain personally at the expense of others.  I interpret, the message about journalistic standards as a weak response to a rising crisis when things didn't go quite as intended.  

 

I don't believe we can pick and choose tidbits from the book and say parts of it are good.  When the premise is bad, we toss out the whole conclusion.  So I *feel* when someone says, "Yeah, he's making a point" they either agree or they have been duped as well."

 

I'll leave one final thought.  If you have the stomach to read one more post on this topic -- read this one: http://bit.ly/LT2rPW  It lays out a compelling case for why manipulation is penny wise and pound foolish.  Take a close look at the sales figures -- and the losses. There is no case for lying.   Lying is dead. 

 

Note:  I wrote this comment, then deleted it, because I realized after publishing, I included the wrong link.  I deleted the comment and posted exactly the same text – typos and all -- except I put the right link in the comment this time. 

 

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ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Frank_Strong Brigitte used to work for me (not Holiday) and (I think) she's talking only about the issue Holiday raises around journalists needing to do their fact checking and background work. You and I don't disagree about that. What we disagree with is his approach.  @Brigitte 

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Brigitte
Brigitte like.author.displayName 1 Like

@Frank_Strong Haha, no. If you search the archives of this blog, you might figure out where I once worked. I don't advocate lying, nor am I a liar. I am truly curious -- did you read the book?

Avi Lambert
Avi Lambert

I think this narrative shows that reporting is not what it used to be. Citizen journalism has ruptured the cultural norm that previously separated professionals and amateurs. And the news cycle has definitely increased in velocity because of the social conversation and social communication. But the personal choices made by Holiday to make a point about media manipulation reveal more about Holiday's low ethical standards and drive for celebrity than anything else. While PR practitioners and journalists drop the ball on occasion and with some frequency, ethics are a core part of each discipline. At the very least, it's worth thanking Holiday for raising significant questions about credibility. 

joeldon
joeldon like.author.displayName 1 Like

After I saw the movie Borat, two things crossed my mind:  1) this was a really funny movie and; 2) Sacha Baron Cohen can't make a Borat 2.  Sacha's version of an R-rated Candid Camera is a one trick pony.  Now that we now all know who Ryan Holiday is (never heard of him until now) and what he is not (a public relations person), the PR/marketing profession can be assured that Ryan won't be interviewed by the New York Times anytime soon as an expert on neutrino particle degradation or cited in a National Geographic post on best digital camera choices for an Antarctica expedition. 

 

Perhaps the most amusing part of Ryan's quest for his 15 minutes of page views was his interview by George Knapp on the national Coast to Coast AM radio show on July 22.  In that interview, Ryan referred to HARO, the service he scammed, as: 1) "a secret service"; 2) "a secret social network" and; 3) "a secret backroom" for journalists and sources.  Really?  A secret?  Ryan, if you checked some sources you'd find the "secret" phase of the PR business existed before you skipped out of college at 19, when companies and clients mostly had to rely on public relations pros to connect with media. Peter Shankman disrupted that business model with HARO, creating a free tool to enable anybody to directly pitch story sources or expertise to media, without the need for PR intermediaries/gatekeepers.  And by anybody, that means, in Ryan's words to the millions of Coast to Coast listeners, "publicists and hustlers and self-promoters."  Much to the dismay of some PR people who once enjoyed total control of the process, HARO is about as secret as Tucker Max's well-exercised liver or his personal struggle with social etiquette.

 

But enough of the Ryan Show.  When this story hit the radar, the first thing I did was look at the clients and companies that have hired Ryan Holiday or engage him today for his "promotional" (not PR) services.  We are often a reflection of the clients and companies that hire us for public relations and marketing counsel.  And it goes both ways.  The company you keep, in our brave, new transparent world, is revealing. 

 

3HatsComm
3HatsComm like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

Read this, then read Peter Shankman's post. Agree w/ most of the comments here and there: what this person did is NOT in any way PR! It's some misguided, terrible attempt to game a system, in order to 'make a point' and get the publicity in order to sell a book. It is not PR. 

 

Sadly, I think for the few who don't look further this will hurt the perception of the industry. (See @KenMueller comments.) But I think it will be limited; I mean I'm just learning of this now and as the story unfolds, I hope this will die a quick death. Lost in all this b.s.: the 'news' that - wait a minute - what we read in the magazines and see on TV aren't 100% true and 110% accurate all the time?! Color me unsurprised. (And as some of the tweets and comments have pointed out re: research, fact checking, this reflects just as negatively on journalism.)

 

But this.. lying and manipulating the media for sport, for eventual profit, just to show you can? IDK. This is such an abomination, such a ridiculous ploy - I hope that most rational people will see it for the reeking, flaming pile of poo it is. FWIW.

ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @3HatsComm  I hope so, too. The thing that bothers me the most is there are people who believe his crap and think the good and nice people don't get ahead. That this is the only way to get ahead. I guess every industry has 'em. Why should ours be any different?

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HowieG
HowieG like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @ginidietrich  @3HatsComm sadly when I looked up this dickwad on twitter he was getting a lot of positive tweets...especially in the PR industry of his personal blog and huff post article.

 

Comes down to marketing and PR folks tend to be really gullible for some reason. But people in general are really gullible believing so much stuff they shouldn't.

3HatsComm
3HatsComm like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @HowieSPM  There's a sucker born every minute, or so I've heard. Alas like @ginidietrich I ain't find mine yet, so no getting ahead this way for me. :)

 

The danger is gullibility, the lack of critical reasoning. "It's on the Internet, it must be true," is the thinking for far too many. This crap has 'exposed' the media in some ways and yes, it's a blogger, a journalist's job to vet their sources, to check the facts. But the problem to me is that the exposure here won't shine a light for anyone not looking; those who need to know how the game can/is rigged, well.. they're typically the last ones to question it.

 

IDK this just is not PR; hell, it's not even publicity or media relations. And that's all I tell anyone willing to listen. FWIW.

ginidietrich
ginidietrich

@JamesBSchultz Are your ears burning? Lisa and I were just going thru your site.

ryancox
ryancox like.author.displayName 1 Like

I guess I'd never heard of this guy @ginidietrich and I can say I was probably better off for it. Media manipulator reads: lie on purpose and get paid because of it. There are plenty of other ways to prove and change industries that are broken. Exploiting it for self profit because you "can" isn't how my mother raised me. I'd rather be less self profitable than a man that can't look in the mirror and be happy with what I see.

shonali
shonali

@nikki_little Me too! @ginidietrich

nikki_little
nikki_little

@shonali And it enrages us because it's so far away from what PR is all about! Sigh.

Tinu
Tinu like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

Yikes. I'll stay on your team, Gini. I'm not surprised this is possible, but I'm amazed someone is that sketchy. Really I think we should spearhead a group that agrees to report and share with integrity. Or finds publications that do so and reports their records, even awards the ones with the most integrity. It's crazy that media became democratized partly to be an alternative to the tred of manufactured news- Yet here we are again.

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ginidietrich
ginidietrich moderator like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @Tinu It makes me sad...and not a big believer in human kind. Which I hate feeling.

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Tinu
Tinu like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

@ginidietrich Sad, yes. But I'm going to struggle against losing faith in humanity. For every one of him, there's one of you. And I think the light of people like you smothered their darkness.

Latest blog post: Sex, Social Media and Your Bag of Tricks

Trackbacks

  1. Communications Done Right | Jaggers Communications says:
    July 23, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    [...] tone that makes us proud to be in the communications business, rather than being embarrassed by the likes of Ryan Holiday, the lying jerk and “media manipulator.” The letter is non-threatening, helpful, [...]

  2. Responding to Peter Shankman | RyanHoliday.net says:
    July 23, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    [...] The revelations garnered such an enormous outcry that HARO (and some lazy, entitled people in the journalistic and PR communities) had to respond. Naturally, they decided to strike back at me personally. It doesn’t surprise [...]

  3. Eight Ways The ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’ Guy is a Boon to PR | Common Sense says:
    July 24, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    [...] bags because of the fear that Holiday’s lies will smear all professional communication. (Gini Dietrich’s take on the matter — and the accompanying comments — is well-thought out, but her take is a [...]

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  5. Inside PR 3.03: On ethical communications | Thornley Fallis says:
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    [...] the same publication: Lying to journalists is not a genius PR stunt.  If you want to know more, read this post, or this one, or this one, or this one — which has great data, that I went and double [...]

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