Biz media faces the music

TheStreet.com’s Marek Fuchs writes Friday that the business media’s coverage of Starbucks annual meeting showed how well an executive can get journalists to write what he or she wants.

Instead of focusing on the issues at Starbucks outlined in a recent memo from chairman Howard Schultz, the business media decided to write about the coffee company’s deal with Paul McCartney.

Fuchs wrote, “And reporters should have been lying in wait, ready to pounce, prod and, in the end, write about what larger issues this — once more — great though possibly stalled retailer must have faced. I couldn’t wait. Schultz is as skilled in managing a company as he is in managing himself in front of Wall Street. Unfortunately, too, he is as skilled in managing the press as anyone capable of a transparently distracting gesture has ever been.

“Cue Sir Paul.

“The coffeehouse chain announced that it would be getting into the music-production business — and at a high level, with the ex-Beatle’s next album its first effort.

“This is interesting, worth mentioning and could probably, if it works, help the company a bit. However, the real issue of whether its brand is on the run remains.

“So how did the business media handle the balance?

“You really didn’t ask that, did you?

“Take a bunch of baby boomer reporters, wheel McCartney out in front of a camera so he can wave to them on a television screen and, oh boy, do they lose what should have been the major focus of the meeting.”

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