Inside the ‘Media Malpractice’ Promo Tour

I am sure that the media tour for any major film is always interesting. However, when that film skewers many of the very same outlets and people who are interviewing you, the possibility for the ride to get particularly odd increases exponentially.  

Last week I released my documentary film “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted“ and appeared on numerous major media outlets to explain and promote the film. You can see most of those, often hilarious, appearances for yourself here.

This is a diary of sorts of my promotional tour. 

Sunday February 22nd: 

For weeks we had geared our entire rollout to revolve around a long scheduled live appearance on the “Today Show” which would center around us having given them the exclusive on the rest of the Sarah Palin interview that I had done back in January (believe me NBC was not my first choice and the thick irony of doing this with the network that was featured most in my film was not lost on me).

I flew from Los Angeles to New York with my publicist on the project, Michael Wright…  As soon as we stepped off the plane Michael had a message from the “Today Show” producer who had set up the interview.  They were going to bump us from Monday to Tuesday because of the Academy Awards coverage they would be doing. This development was particularly galling because twice during negotiations I had mentioned to them that they might not want to do the segment the morning after the Oscars, but they insisted.

Now, we were facing total disaster. If we allowed the interview to get moved to Tuesday we would run right into the wall to wall coverage of President Obama’s faux “State of the Union” speech that night and we would get no traction. Plus, I had e-mailed our list of 50,000 supporters alerting them to the appearance on Monday. In my mind there was no way Tuesday was a viable option. I felt like six months of incredibly hard work and well over $100,000 of my own money was about to be flushed away.

After much (often heated) discussion with Michael, I was convinced that the “Today Show” was simply expressing a preference based on the notion that they could push us around and that we should basically call their bluff. We had a very clear agreement with them that we could only be bumped for “breaking news,” which the Oscars were obviously not.

Eventually they gave in and put us back on Monday morning in the prime 7:35 am slot, but it was an extremely draining way to start what was going to be a long week and I think it may have subconsciously impacted how I handled the eventual appearance on the show.

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Monday February 23rd:

After getting maybe two hours of sleep (the events of Sunday combined with the time difference created a toxic mix), we walked from our hotel over to the “Today Show” studios. Having not really eaten dinner the night before, I was disappointed to find that the fixings in the green room at even the vaunted “Today Show” are rather lame. I guess times are tough all over (though I somehow guess that if a celebrity had been scheduled that day the food would have been a little better).

Eventually, I was brought out to the set. Unfortunately, because of the timing of the segment there was no chance for pleasantries (not that I am a “pleasantries” kind of guy) with Matt Lauer, who would be doing the interview with me. This was because as soon as he sat down they immediately played the set up piece from Norah O’Donnell about the rest of the Palin interview that I had given them the exclusive on.

I knew I needed pay close attention to make sure I could immediately call them out on anything in the piece that was blatant distortion, which, knowing the history of Norah O’Donnell I fully expected to happen. I had debated internally how I would handle that circumstance and whether it was a smart idea to “blow up” the entire interview over whatever acts of “media malpractice” O’Donnell chose to perform.

Much to my surprise, O’Donnell went in a totally different direction. While there were some subtle shots taken at Palin by mischaracterizing the general nature of my interview with her, in general O’Donnell seemed to try make the interview seem as boring and non-newsworthy as possible. To this day I am completely befuddled by the clips that NBC chose to air from over 30 minutes of largely explosive stuff that they had been given exclusively.  In fact, the longest clip they broadcast was Palin’s innocuous first answer to my first question of her. This was like having the major highlight from the Super Bowl come from pre-game warm ups. I have to wonder if it was done out of just plain old laziness.

Meanwhile I instantly needed to decide how I was going to handle the biggest interview of my life and, since I was not positive that the more dangerous road made sense, I decided to take the safer route. Under the same circumstances I think anyone else would have done the same thing, but given 20/20 hindsight I think I would have done it differently if I had to do it over.

This is not to say the Lauer interview was not without sparks. I was proud that I got him to admit that the media-created perception of Sarah Palin as an “idiot” is a lie, but frankly he was just too nice to me for me to go on a full out attack without looking like a complete ass (as a “conservative,” straight, white, non-celebrity male I start such situations with at least two strikes already counted against me).

Unlike most conservatives who have the lone goal of getting re-invited when they go on high-profile liberal shows, I usually let it all hang out, but Lauer, I guess to his credit, did not allow me an opportunity to do really do that. Still, I had made my points and did not back down. As for Lauer, he could not have been less offended by my barbs at him. After the interview when I mentioned that we were both avid golfers he whispered (why, I don’t know) to me that he had played Augusta National that weekend and his group had to wait for the frost to melt before teeing off. Tough life, Matt.

 Immediately after getting off the set I was taken to the MSNBC studios for an appearance on “Morning Joe,” which was incredibly frustrating because I knew that the host Joe Scarborough was going to love my film, at least in part because he played a fairly prominent and positive role in it. Unfortunately there was no way to get him to see the film before the show and with his 13 different co-hosts (at least it felt that way) we weren’t really able to get much beyond the surface. About the only memorable moment was when Pat Buchanan facetiously asked me (in perfect deadpan) if there was one network that was worse than any of the others and Joe stepped in before I could give the obvious answer of the very network on which we were appearing.  I also made a bet with co-host Mika that her opinion of Sarah Palin would change when she saw this film, but I have not yet heard back from her on what the result of that wager was.

 As I was leaving the set of “Morning Joe” I was approached by a producer who asked if I would do an interview with none other than Norah O’Donnell. Even though she would be in DC and I was only planning to do in-studio interviews on this trip, I couldn’t resist the chance to let her have it for what she did with the “Today Show” set-up piece and how absurd it was in the first place that she would be chosen to do the story because just a couple of weeks before she had incorrectly stated on the air that Sarah Palin had called Barack Obama a “terrorist” during the campaign.

When we showed up for the interview we were informed that because Andrea Mitchell (one of the key targets of my film) was sick and that O’Donnell would have to sub for her and could not do the interview. I told them I only wanted to do the interview with her and apparently they moved mountains to get her immediately to the set, possibly under the delusion that I was requesting her out of respect or admiration.

What resulted was an interview that may have been truly unique in the history of cable news networks. I started the interview by thanking her for giving me fodder for my next film “Media Malpractice 2: The Sequel” (still only in the imaginary stage) and then I proceeded to tell her that she should have been fired rather than rewarded for her Palin/Obama “terrorist” comment. The hilarity ensued from there. I highly recommend you seeing the whole story here.

One other thing happened while I was on the MSNBC set that I found to be interesting. For the third straight time that day one member of the studio crew had made a concerted effort to approach me and essentially thank me for doing the film. I guess when you work for NBC? MSNBC and are forced to be subjected to their coverage all the time, it makes quite an impact.

Later that afternoon we got our first cancellation of an interview. We had been tentatively booked to do an interview with CNN’s Olbermann-wannabe Rick Sanchez, which I was really looking forward to because he would give me even more fodder than O’Donnell (and he isn’t even cute). Unfortunately, he apparently chickened out. It was a very wise decision on his part. I would have destroyed him.

That night I made my first live appearance on the legendary O’Reilly Factor. Considering the immense stature of the show, the green room was really small and, on this night, literally overflowing with guests. The experience of being brought into the set with Bill is almost surreal and a little like I have imagined an audience with the Pope might be. Bill was short, firm, polite and a real pro on the air.  On that show it is much more important what Bill says than what you say and since he essentially endorsed the film, I was thrilled.

– 

 Tuesday February 24th: 

Perhaps the most surprising development of the trip was the way my first CNN interview went on “American Morning.” I was incredibly impressed that Kiran Chetry, the person doing my live interview, actually took the time to speak to me in the green room before we went on the air. Even rarer than that sincere effort was that she was incredibly open and honest about how she at first had been drawn to Sarah Palin and then was turned off to her by certain events. The result was perhaps the most interesting interview I did the entire week. She has promised to watch the film once I can get it to her. I hope that it might help her see that she was duped by the very industry in which she works.

This was also the only appearance that I am aware of where the most newsworthy clip of my Sarah Palin interview was actually played. How in the world her saying, “Obviously something big took place in the mainstream media deciding to SEEK and DESTROY this candidacy of Sarah Palin’s because of what she represents in a conservative movement,” is not a major news story is completely baffling to me.

My other CNN interview that day was for “Showbiz Tonight.” Having to follow a full segment of “Octomom” developments made me quickly realize exactly where I stood in the media hierarchy. Still, I seemed to make at least some impact on the anchor, so it was not a lost cause.

By far the most fun interview of the week was on the Glenn Beck Show. If doing O’Reilly is like meeting the Pope, doing Glenn’s show is like hanging out with the Court Jester. He is incredibly entertaining and relaxed, especially for a guy who has never done live TV before his now incredibly successful Fox News show. He also loved the film and seemed to be amused by me, so that was also a big boost.

I did one interview on this day that was solely for the purpose of revenge. Largely due to my extreme interest in (and very tangential involvement in) the O.J. Simpson case, as well as my friendship with Kim Goldman, I have long hated former book publisher Judith Regan for essentially paying the double murderer for his bogus confessional, “If I Did It” book. When her producer asked me on her Sirius radio show (clearly having no idea of why that would be a really bad idea) I couldn’t resist. The results were almost exactly as I expected. When the segment ended she was completely out of sorts and I was basically tossed out of the studio. I felt great about it.

Wednesday February 25th: 

I head to Washington, DC for CPAC to do an in-studio appearance on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”  While I have disagreed with Great in the past, she deserves real credit for seeing early on the power and impact of the Sarah Palin story. I have joked with her in the past that she has gone to Wasilla so often that she gets her mail delivered there. I think the Palin’s are even considering building an addition onto their house for her.

Thursday February 26th: 

For the first time we are actually going to publicly show parts of the film. Even though you would think this would be nerve racking, I am so confident in the content of the work that actually showing the film is about the least stressful portion of the week.

Our showing of the entire Palin interview at CPAC goes well and our premiere of the actual film at the National Press Club gets greeted by a standing ovation (largely because the vast majority of the invited media decided to not attend, gee, I wonder why). Even AOL’s liberal blogger Tommy Christopher, gave the film a big thumbs up.

Friday February 27th:  

Most of this day is spent enduring radio row at CPAC which is essentially like some sort of chaotic penis measuring contest where guests are booked and dumped on a moment’s notice based on their Q- rating in the conservative media. At one point I got temporarily bumped on a national show for 9/11 conspiracy nut Jerome Corsi. That hurt.

Later in the afternoon I was in the lobby of the hotel meeting a reporter to give him a copy of “Media Malpractice” when left-wing blogger Max Blumenthal approached me and, without even bothering to ask permission, starts asking me questions on camera about how I didn’t use my full name in one of my numerous attempts to get Max to do an interview for my 2008 film, “Blocking the Path to 9/11.”

Since I had been seeking a chance to question Max about his dastardly and incredibly destructive efforts to get the “Path to 9/11″ censored with lies and distortions, I figured I would engage rather do what he would have done, which of course would have been to run away. The ensuing exchange got rather heated and of course I was giving him the power to edit the tape to try to make himself look less bad (which he, largely unsuccessfully, attempted to do). I hope that he will eventually fulfill his promise of posting the entire video as well as to debate me on the substance of my damning allegations against him. I will not be holding my breath.

On this day I also got bumped from interviews with Bob Schieffer and Anderson Cooper.  They add their names to the list of apparent cowards like Chris Matthews, Campbell Brown and Rick Sanchez who have booked me during this saga only to later chicken out for no apparent reason. Even MSNBC’s David Shuster who made a  HUGE deal about interviewing me twice in one day when the Palin interview was originally released and saying I was welcome back anytime, never called.  David, I thought we had something special.

Saturday February 28th:

Max Blumenthal didn’t show up for a debate I had set up with Tommy Christopher. I’m hardly surprised. 

The panel I’m on at CPAC is a complete joke and a total injustice to the incredibly important topic of the news media. 

I’m  now ill — probably got something from hanging out with Blumenthal too long.

Sunday, March 1st:

I return home to Los Angeles and as sick as I am I’m hoping the “Today Show” doesn’t cancel the ride home they promised. Thankfully, they stand by their commitment. Now, if I can keep my badly neglected fiancée from killing me, I should be ok.

Monday, March 2nd:

I won’t even find out until the next day (which really shows how small and isolated the MSNBC audience is) but Keith Olbermann names me one of the “Worst People in the World,” for a speech I gave at CPAC in which I said that those on the conservative side who sell-out for liberal media approval should be punished. 

If you watch the video, I urge you to see if you can find the five lies and distortions Olby spews in his short commentary on my words. The most hurtful was him calling me a “failed sportscaster.” That was actually one my few careers I was really good at! The most blatant and harmful falsehood was him claiming I “scared Sarah Palin” when I showed her his picture. This is just not true. I showed her my first film “Blocking the Path to 9/11“ and when she saw his picture on the back cover she groaned and said, “That guy is so evil. What is wrong with him?”

I would expect nothing less from Olbermann and I consider his attack a badge of honor.

Wednesday, March 3rd:

Today I head out for Seattle, the first stop of our national tour.

Editor’s Note: You can purchase “Media Malpractice” at this link.