Ted Streuli, BridgeTower Media Newswires
"You have to respect your audience," singer k.d. lang said. "Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself."
That's excellent advice almost any time a mouth opens: Respect your audience.
There's a piece of company lore in our shop about an event for attorneys one of our sister newspapers held a decade or more ago. The paper hired a comedian to deliver the keynote address, which is a perfectly good idea. Maybe you can't get away with that at the annual gathering of the Morose and Sullen Society, but lawyers like to laugh as much as anyone.
The publisher talked to the speaker before the meeting. "Look," he said, "no lawyer jokes, OK? This is an event that honors the work lawyers do, that celebrates their contribution to a free and democratic society. We're not going to make fun of their profession. Anything else is fine, no lawyer jokes."
"Got it," the comedian said. And when he got up on stage, he introduced himself and started telling jokes.
"Hey, good afternoon everybody! Wasn't that a terrific meal? That's right, it sure was. Say, does anybody in here happen to know how many lawyers it takes to change a lightbulb? How many can you afford?"
The monologue went downhill from there with the speaker telling nothing but lawyer jokes. First one, then a few, then a lot of the lawyers in the audience got up and left.
Know your audience.
At an American Gaming Association panel presentation Tuesday, almost everyone on the podium knew their audience. There were representatives from the tribes, a smattering of elected officials, and a lot of media; The Oklahoman was there, a television station or two, Okemah News Leader publisher and state Sen. Roger Thompson, and three people from The Journal Record. Collectively, that was a significant portion of the audience, in keeping with the event's mission, which was to bring attention to the economic impact gambling has in Oklahoma and 39 other states.
Oklahoma's 4th District congressman, Tom Cole, spoke knowledgeably about the vast economic growth and diversity that's occurred in his district since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act became law in 1988. The Cherokee and Choctaw nations were represented on the panel and the directors of the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association and the American Gaming Association were there to speak to the topic.
Second District U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin was there too, but he must have skipped the Know Your Audience chapter when he read Public Speaking for Dummies. Mullin opened with a rant about the media's consistent failure to report the great economic impact the tribes have in Oklahoma to an audience full of media people who were there to cover the great economic impact the tribes have in Oklahoma.
If I'd had a chance to ask Mullin a question, I would have asked him which newspapers he reads on a regular basis. I think it would have been a short answer. Sen. Thompson's News Leader covers Okemah's Creek Nation Community Hospital, so his audience is aware of some of the economic impact. If Mullin read The Journal Record, he'd know we dedicate an entire issue each year to tribal economic impact and that we write a story on that very topic an average of once every eight weeks.
It's easier to blindly blame the media than it is to learn the facts. Consequently, Mullin spent his time standing alone, singing to himself. The lesson might be that if you don't know what you're talking about, stop talking. You'll sound a lot smarter.
Published: Fri, Oct 27, 2017
