how to succeed in business without really trying

The NYT’s David Carr makes it sound easy:  Stay out of the spotlight! [e.a.]

If Ms. Regan and the News Corporation don’t settle, the discovery and trial could be embarrassing. …

It’s not that her particular claims about the News Corporation have to stick. Pull back the blankets on any enterprise — the book business, the movie business, what the heck, the news business — and some common industry practices are not going to look so good in the cold light of the courtroom. She was in a position to know a lot, and she may be in the mood to tell all of it.

“We don’t know the truth of the various allegations, but other things may come out that are not directly related to what she is suing for,” said Mark C. Zauderer, a Manhattan trial lawyer. “You have to consider the financial exposure versus the reputational exposure of not settling.”

Carr suggests that it’s NewsCorp. which will suffer embarrassment.

So before News Corporation executives decide to tangle with Ms. Regan in court, perhaps they should remember why they hired her in the first place.

Um, no. Rupert Murdoch, his reputation as a bottom feeder cemented, cannot possibly be embarrassed. It’s the reputation of HarperCollins that’s at stake here, and publishers don’t really need bad publicity, because their business is under enough pressure as is.

But publishers do seem a tad dazed and confused about the darn pace of things these days. Why, Peter Osnos was amazed that a feeding frenzy erupted over catalog copy from a book he plans to publish in April 2008:

[W]hat was amazing about the response was that it became a huge story before anyone pursued its context. …

The first reaction to the excerpt was that McClellan, by saying they were “involved,” was accusing the president and vice-president of deliberate deception. The rejoicing among administration critics was palpable. Senators Schumer and Dodd and the outed Valerie Plame herself were immediately available to denounce the president. …

We conferred with McClellan and decided that he was better off working on his book than grappling with the media (I did not immediately realize that there was a firestorm on the Web and cable …) I explained [to the media] that … the full story must await publication.

The backlash then ensued … [T]he newspaper Web sites, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, joined in the fray with blog entries and chat sessions conveying full sound and fury and the “deflating” fact that McClellan was not accusing the president of deliberate deception.

And the meaning of it all?

Scott McClellan is writing a responsible book about his moment in history. Much of our popular media, including some leading brand names, apparently shoot first and ask later. The blogosphere and cable news operate in a universe of their own in which frenzy and vituperation are the major currency.

Well, yes: the public is eager for new entertainments, so the guardians of the court of public opinion—the media—needs a constant supply of grist for the mill. Of course they get all frenzied and vituperative. Everybody knows that.

The days of old-fashioned publicity campaigns and fancy, newfangled rollouts—controlled and controllable—are over.

No one has yet managed to harness the power of a viral media frenzy to benefit him/herself: the results are too unpredictable. That’s why everyone is—or should be—cautious about getting into the spotlight.