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KEYNOTE PRESENTATION CoSIDA 2010July 6, 2010Ari FleischerSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA ARI FLEISHER: Good afternoon. It was just a few years ago, I used to spend all my afternoons, all my mornings, and many of my nights, surrounded by the White House Press Corps. So believe me, it's a pleasure to be with you. (Laughter) Larry, thank you very much for most of that introduction. (Laughter) I appreciate it. Although I do have to say that if getting a phone call from me gives you a thrill, we need to work on getting you better thrills. (Laughter) John Humenik -- where is John? John, great to see you. Thank you for putting this together. Thank you for everything you do as part of CoSIDA, with all the educational programs that you make available for people who participate in what I view as one of the greatest things anybody can do on earth, combine sports communications. So thanks for everything that CoSIDA does. Justin Douherty, Justin, as we call in my old job, Mr. President -- (Laughter) -- it's great to see you. Tom DiCamillo, thank you for everything you're doing for CoSIDA. And Barb, I had a chance to say hello to you today. Pleasure to be with you. And my good friend Bill Handcock. Bill, it's always an honor to share a stage with you and a moment with you and just to be with you. I saw Nicki this morning. Great to be here. Great to see you. You know, I stand before you today as someone who used to hold one of the most miserable jobs in all of America. (Laughter) Standing at that podium at the briefing room taking tough, nasty argumentative questions from some of the meanest, most aggressive, most tough-minded, most serious reporters in the land is what I used to do for a living, once a day on camera, once a day off camera. And during the Iraq war I did it three times a day, with my first briefing at 6:45 in the morning, in an attempt to shape the news for the day that would be, for most people, most normal people would get up and watch the 7:00 morning news shows. And I loved it. I loved every minute of every pressure-filled day that I had at the White House. It was by far the best job that I could ever have in my life. It was the most intellectually stimulating, wonderful, fascinating, motivated fun-filled jobs I could ever have. It was also the toughest, the most difficult, the hardest, the most pressure-filled, most burn-out job I could ever have. It had its highlights. In that job that I had at the White House, I twice got to meet Pope John Paul, II. I once got to meet Shaquille O'Neal. (Laughter) I got picked up on a helicopter in the north lawn -- south lawn of the White House to catch a ride on Air Force 1, where I never even once had to take my shoes off or say anything to anybody from TSA before I could board that airplane. (Laughter) And never, not even on a rainy Friday in New York City, did I ever hear the words: "We're No. 17 for take-off." Not that I had any problems when I boarded the United Airlines flight from JFK to San Francisco, but I miss Air Force 1. (Laughter) I got to play catch with the President of the United States on the south lawn of the White House. I wore a business suit. He wore a bulletproof jacket. (Laughter) I did it through a difficult time for our nation. As Larry said, I served during a tumultuous era for America. I was Press Secretary on the campaign, living in Austin, Texas, for what I thought would be Election Day 2000, which instead turned into Election Six Week Day 2000. (Laughter) One of the best things about sports and one of the best things about my old business of politics, is you work as hard as you can, you pour your heart and soul into it, and on any one given day on my business called election day, your business it's called game day, you either win or you lose. Not so in 2000. I remember I went on the air with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, 6:01 Austin Time, 7:01 Eastern Time, the day after Election 2000, it came so natural, I used a sports metaphor: "Looks like, Matt, we went to the tenth inning but I'm confident that he'll be called President Bush in the bottom of the tenth." Little did I know that the game would go about 19 innings. I also served through September 11th, through two wars, through what by far were the most difficult briefings I had to deliver, the anthrax attacks on the United States. I say it was the most difficult briefing I ever had to deliver because it does not matter what pressure-filled situation you're in, it doesn't matter how deep or how grave the crisis is, if you know what you're going to say. If you know what the answers are, it's the steel in your spine. And no matter how tough the times, you stand there and articulate what you need to articulate on behalf of your team, on behalf your school, on behalf of your nation. During the anthrax attacks, I took the podium and I never knew what to say because we never knew why I was there, who did it or how extensive it was, how wide-spread it might be and because people were dying, and because people were afraid to open their mail. When I look back on my career, that to me was the most difficult briefings I ever had to deliver. And those were, so to speak, the events that took place on my field when I was the White House spokesman and my job is to explain to millions of people, often watching live on TV what the president was trying to do for the country, what the nation was going through, and what we as Americans would do to see our way through it. And I want you to think about something: When you compare what I did for a living to what you do for a living in sports, there are certain obvious differences. But there are also powerful similarities. And that's why I'm here. The only two institutions in our society that demand the type of attention that get live coverage of events and a section of the newspaper dedicated to themselves are the White House and America's premier sports organizations, including college sports. If you think about it, press coverage can come and go for so many people in our society. For senators, for congressmen, it can come and go. For governors, it can come and go. But for the White House, my events were covered live, my briefings with the press, live every day. Statements by the president, live every day. Section of the newspaper, dedicated to what the government was doing called the news section. The only other institution that has that type of regular coverage is sports, live coverage of your games. Live coverage of your events. In many different cities across the country, particularly the D-I level for your head coaches of football, especially live coverage seven days a week, if a coach wants it. And of course the constant pressure and coverage of media bloggers and fans. People follow what the White House does for a living and what sports organizations do for a living, because of that natural passion that we as Americans have towards the things in life that mean the most to us. And it can often be a noisy passion. Because people care so much about the two institutions. And that's why I established my sports communications firm. When I realized how similar people's interests are in these two fields, when I realized how much these two fields have a need to communicate, to communicate well, often under pressure, often in a tough environment. And I thought about how much help sometimes people can need in sports communication. Especially when controversies loom. I knew that it was the place for me. And don't ask me why, but when things get tense, times get tough, when news threatens to make the front page of the paper, let alone the front page of the sports section, that's where I want to be. That's where I think I can help the most and somehow that's where I see clearest and am the calmest because I enjoy helping people through controversy. Because I also enjoy dealing with the press. The press can make you and they can break you. Look at the wonderful coverage of certain people in the world of sports. From Colt McCoy to Tim Tebow, Derek Jeter, LeBron James and Cal Ripkin and Peyton Manning, and it's easy to see why they are or will soon be America's heroes, with tens of millions of dollars in endorsements, foundations and the sky is the limit opportunities in front of them, and wonderful, wonderful press for their universities and the places from which they came or where they're currently playing. And when things go well for teams, for individuals, the press is your best ally. Often to a degree that sets you up for your next problem, because the press will overdramatize, overhype, pump up those teams or those players, the media loves a compelling narrative, a good guy versus a bad guy story. A Cinderella story. A "can you believe it" story. They need that to do their daily jobs, to take that which is ordinary in sports and make it extra ordinary in the sports pages. And when your teams or your players are doing well, it's like tubing down an easy river. The tide will carry you and the ride will be fun, and if you look at who in the world of sports gets good press and why, it's the following four categories. One, winners. Nothing gets good press like success on the field. Two, clean guys. The role models, the mentors, the people and I say this with the utmost desire for this to be forever the case in America, the people we tell our children this is who you want to be when you grow up. It's that type of athlete that as a father we say to our children: This is a good person. Watch what they do. The clean guys. Comeback stories. Guys who went wrong. Josh Hamilton. People who have overcome that type of adversity. Sometimes they put in front of themselves to turn around their life and do better. And the poignant stories, poverty to champion story, like Michael Oher of the Baltimore Ravens. These are the things that draw people to the compelling narrative of the world of sports. These are the things that as SIDs you need to look forward to get out your press coverage. You can't affect who is a winner, necessarily, but you certainly have within your means the ability to publicize so many of those things that draw people to the world of sports. But if you're fortunate enough to be riding on one of these good tides, don't get used to it. Because there's always a waterfall somewhere. One slip-up, one revelation, one good crime, that the press is equally drawn to the fall from grace story, properly so. Sadly, that's what we witnessed and still are witnessing with Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger and Lawrence Taylor, college football, when LaGarrette Blount threw that punch at the beginning of the season last year. Instantly put him in the same category. When I watched the news conference right afterwards, the statement in the locker room, I saw a man with remorse, genuine, unscripted remorse. Knew he did wrong. This is the narrative. This is the story of sports that draws people to it. Makes your job harder and easier every single day. And if it hasn't happened to you already in this room, it will happen to many. And it will test you as sports information directors. How many have had to deal with a player, a coach, who committed a crime. An assault. A DWI? A problem? It happens all the time in the world of sports. But unlike in the private sector where it also happens all the time, it's newsworthy in the world of sports. And you as sports information directors need to be ready and know how to handle it to get the people around you successfully through it. Because you know the press can also break you. And to the degree that the press has a controversy or creates one, it can create bad blood in the locker room or create a distraction for your university, for your administrators, then it can affect the way the game is played on the field, the revenues that are brought in and the manner in which a team or entire sports program is run. And unfortunately for you, it's my experience that the sports press is becoming increasingly like the political press in the sense that when things go wrong, they stir the pot and they often make things worse. They can be cynical and often negative. In many ways they have an advantage over the political press, because they have so much more liberty to put their opinions into sports stories. The political reporters do. You have to deal with much of that in your dealings. And when a football team starts at 0-4, your AD is going to get asked in some media markets on live TV how long until they're going to fire that head coach, just as when gate crashers made it into the White House to attend the state dinner, the Press Secretary was instantly asked: When will you fire the Social Secretary? It's the same. Reporters bring that same intensity of coverage, the same scrutiny that makes you focus on how are we going to get through it to sports and to politics. When I was in office, whenever Colin Powell was split with Donald Rumsfeld, which happened every day -- (Laughter) -- I would get asked which one does the president agree with, and which one will the president take to the woodshed. So, too, when you have a split between your AD and coach or faculty versus the sports department issue, how are you going to see your university through it? How are you going to keep people together on a campus remembering your common cause? Because the press will try to throw you into it to make you take sides. They'll taunt you and see if they can get you to bite. Thereby keeping the controversy alive for another day. Now, as I said, I loved dealing with the press. I did so because I had tremendous respect for what they do and for the fact that without their scrutiny, without their lens focus in on us we would make so many more mistakes. We would take things for granted and the press, because we know if we do the wrong thing is there to cover it for people, it helps us to do the right thing. Every institution needs a watchdog. And the press is our watchdog. So even in the middle of the worst controversy, in the middle of the worst fight you may be having with the press, it's essential to remember we need them. They need us. And it's a relationship that has to be based on respect for what they do. So every day, right around lunchtime on the East Coast, when I took that podium and assumed the position of a human pinata -- (Laughter) -- I did so enjoying it. I also did so, as I close, with this word to you: I viewed my old job as engaging in intellectual chess. I knew when I took that podium if I said A, it would make the press ask question B. And I already had to be thinking about answer C. Knowing that would take the press to question D. And so on and so on. And that to you is a real lesson, because if you think about the issue in front of you, you should be able to predict everything reporters are going to do and say. You should be able to anticipate the possible, hard question that every university needs to have an answer to. You should be prepared for every contingency, because of your respect for the press, because of your recognition of the questions they ask are hard, legitimate, often right questions. And you should be able to anticipate not only what they ask, but you respond and what that will take their next question to. In other words, you should think about how you can make that story come out on your terms, not just the press's terms. I'll talk more in my panel discussion at 2:00 about some of the specific advice and tips I have for you on how to deal with different press situations and circumstances. But I want you to think about one final thing: Know how lucky you are to work in the world of sports. Know how privileged it is to be part of an industry that has so much passion in the American people, where millions and millions tune in, tens of millions tune in to some of your games, where people spend their weekends, where people wait in lines to be a small part of something that you're deep in the middle of. And if you have any doubts about the wonderful, valuable role you play, I want you to think back to one of America's darkest days, it was a day where I took that podium where I was on duty doing my job at the White House. September 11th. Because one of the aftermaths of the attack on our country that struck me, and I was keenly aware of it at the White House, was sports in America stopped September 12th. Major League Baseball stopped playing. The NFL stopped playing. College sports stopped playing. It was weeks until games came back And inside the White House one of the signs that we looked to -- I remember talking to the president about it -- one of the things that we wanted to see happen so that America could heal, so that Americans could do what we always so naturally want to do as a people and as a country, was cheer and feel good for being Americans, was to watch sports resume. And for those two, three, and some instances four weeks in which sports was not played, it was as if there was a hole in our country's psyche. People came to their weekends and something natural was gone and missing. This is what you have in your hands. You have something that brings joy, happiness, sadness and misery to so many depending on what that score is. This is the beauty of sports. And for those few weeks in September, I missed it. And only when it came back and you could again watch college sports, we could again watch MLB and again watch the NFL, were people able to say: America is coming back. This is part of what you do for a living. Thank you for being the communicators of it. Thank you for being the guardians of it. Thank you for practicing it every day. It's something all of us as citizens love, enjoy, need and you are the ones who help provide it. So thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me here. It's been my pleasure. Thank you. (Applause) End of FastScripts |
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