Frankie Flack: Ben Bradlee, you ignorant slut

All the reporters in my Twitter feed are linking, during this sad week of Ben Bradlee’s death at the age of 93, to a Washington Post post titled “A classic Ben Bradlee letter to ‘flacks.’”

Bradlee has been responsible for a lot of things we can call “classic.” This ain’t one of them.

The brief letter takes to task some poor PR professional for having the audacity to push a feature about (we think) a retiring lion tamer. It’s been held up as a great example of Bradlee “speaking truth to spin doctors.” But it’s pretty much an object lesson in how not to deal with flacks. Let’s go line-by-line, shall we?

Graf one: “… you letter was offensive and completely unprofessional.”

This is pretty much the only line that makes sense, though we clearly lack the context. Was the original letter profane? Disrespectful or ignorant of the Post’s processes and procedures? If so: good for Ben for calling them out.

Graf two: “We need no help from flacks…”

A quick check of Google shows than 31,000 different pages at washingtonpost.com with the phrase “spokesman for,” 20,000 pages with “spokesperson for” and 14,000 containing “spokeswoman for.” Either things have gone downhill since the advent of the web (possible!) or the Post has great need of flacks to help contextualize the news.

Graf three: “… you stretch my credulity …”

Bradlee doesn’t think that the flack is genuinely interested in giving an over-looked personality a shot at newspaper-granted immortality. That’s pretty jaded for a newsman. I meet a lot of people in my gig, and I do want many of the folks I pitch for profile to get ink because they deserve it, not because their companies will bask in reflected glory.

Graf four: “Whom are we talking about here? General Eisenhower? Jonas Salk?”

If you want to levy a general criticism at the Post, it’s been that it’s been over-invested in the lives of the powerful (not exclusively invested. Just over-invested). Shooting down the chance to interview a “historic personality” because he didn’t become president or cure a dread disease shows an abysmally narrow narrow definition of history.

Graf five: “… we have reviewed the circus every year. There were four stories on the circus in 1985.”

Now, either the context of the original letter explains this (maybe the flack accused the paper of not ever covering the circus) or Bradlee fundamentally misunderstands how I do my job. If I’m flacking for the circus, and a newspaper writes four stories a year on us, I sure as hell am going to pitch them on the famed lion-tamer who is hanging up the whip.

Graf six: “…we trust our editors’ news judgment and we distrust yours.”

One of the reasons that the general public sometimes mistrusts journalists is the deep current of know-it-all-ism that often pervades the profession. It’s possible — even probable — that this could have been an incredible story of a lion in winter (if you’ll pardon the pun). Can you imagine if a Gene Weingarten or a Hank Stuever followed this kind of character around for a couple months? Pulitzer-level color! But by shutting down any further discussion in the name of “distrust” seems heavy handed.

If journalists think is the best of Bradlee and a model for the future, I have more to be worried about than I thought. Tell me respectfully to buzz off, and I’ll leave you be. But don’t spent 300 words explaining how I’m not good or powerful enough to interact with you. You might think it’s a sick burn. The rest of us, including your readers, just think it’s sick.

Let me be clear here: Bradlee is, and was, a giant among journalists. He was the midwife of a great deal of journalism. He brought the best and the brightest into the profession. I still have “A Good Life” on my bookshelf. We are, as citizens of the world, in his debt.

It was still a supremely silly letter.