When You’re Stern, Who Needs a PR Firm?

Samaritan Stern.

Howard Stern’s hands must be calloused and raw from a career of patting himself on the back. Sometimes it’s a stretch, even for him. But last Wednesday, as if the God of Airwaves had personally blessed him, came a public relations gift so tailored to Stern’s narcissistic agenda that it looked suspiciously like a stunt of his own design. But apparently it wasn’t.

The incident, in which Stern used his syndicated morning radio show to help stop a seemingly suicidal man from leaping from New York’s George Washington Bridge, illustrates two things that Stern arguably does better than anyone else in broadcasting.

Talk incessantly and self-promote, also incessantly.

After climbing over a bridge railing, Emilio Bonilla, 29, called Stern on a cellular phone and said he was ready to end his life by jumping into the Hudson River. That Stern immediately separated Bonilla from the various noodles who regularly call his show was itself amazing. Yet he did. And you had to marvel at the way Stern, along with his cohort, Robin Quivers, kept Bonilla preoccupied for 4 1/2 minutes until authorities could grab the potential jumper (whom police later called a “bona fide, distraught individual”) and stop him from fulfilling his threat.

Far more impressive, though, was the speed with which Stern U-turned the incident to his advantage by touting himself as a savior. “This is my Christmas present to all of the world!” humanitarian Howard declared with the kind of self-mockery that endears him to listeners even on those occasions when he stumbles across the taste line like a drunk.

Incredibly, within a minute of the rescue of Bonilla, Stern had sent himself into orbit, transforming someone’s apparent near death into an event of self-celebration, warning a female motorist who had grabbed Bonilla not to “steal my thunder,” suggesting he pose for a “photo op” with Bonilla’s wife and kids “who are now not fatherless because I stepped in,” wondering if he would receive a financial reward for saving Bonilla and beknighting himself a hero.

“Call the newspapers, Gary. Call the newspapers immediately!” Stern ordered his producer within moments of police arriving to take Bonilla into custody.

Could you believe it? Even as the police car with Bonilla was still making its way through traffic, Stern was mapping his self-promotion strategy in detail right on the air, sharing it with the world, doing it live, off the top of his head. There would be the morning’s inevitable press conference at which, he and Quivers agreed, he would do his humble act and let her be the one to call him a hero.

Stern could say all this openly, knowing that the media’s knowing wouldn’t hurt because his indelible reputation as being blatantly self-serving is somehow part of his irresistibility to reporters.

The press conference, broadcast live (and later shown, along with excerpts from the radio broadcast, on Stern’s E! cable show) went as planned. Quivers called Stern a hero and, aw shucks, he said he did only what any other citizen would have done. “I am always available to the police,” he said, magnanimously, before asking, with all humility, that the George Washington Bridge not be renamed after him. “However, if they want to do that,” he said, “there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Why would Bonilla call Stern in the first place? “Did you ever listen to the other jerks on the air?” said Stern, displaying his usual generosity toward competitors. “Who would call them?” And live to tell about it. Imagine the possible result, for example, had Bonilla called Rush Limbaugh instead of Stern. If Bonilla had identified himself as a liberal, Limbaugh would have urged him to jump.

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Stern is hardly alone among broadcasters and others who exploit the airwaves for personal aggrandizement. In that category is Disney, its just-aired ABC special, “The Wonderful World of Disney: 40 Years of Television Magic,” being in part a stage from which to advertise the company’s myriad entertainment ventures.

Some self-servers, such as PR bullies Tom and Roseanne, excel temporarily, their bad will finally thickening like waxy yellow buildup. Michael Jackson was a flame-out, too. Presaged by unproved pedophilia charges, the media backlash found him only after his years of successful manipulation, in which news cameras were summoned to record the visits to children’s hospital wards and other scripted good deeds that his image polishers deployed on his behalf.

Then come the flat-out hucksters. In contrast to the transparent smarminess of the bleating Mr. Blackwells and Richard Simmonses is the blustery Limbaugh, who orchestrates his self-promotion with a maestro’s baton.

Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich may have the gift, too, with each so-called gaffe that the smart, witty Georgia Republican makes appearing to be less a stumble than a calculated step toward some political end. Although Republicans complain that the media are giving Gingrich a bad time, they appear transfixed by his personality and ready to adore him, in part because he’s such good copy.

Which is why sportswriters like unpretentious George Foreman, and why years ago they swooned when young Muhammad Ali opened his mouth to promote his fights, recording and taking copious notes on the insults he hurled at opponents as if they believed he was serious. He wasn’t, and reporters knew it, but willingly allowed themselves to be bribed by sound bites and enlisted in the campaign to attract attention to Ali’s fights.

That’s the way it is with Stern, who understands that the real trick of shameless self-flattery is to openly propagandize without alienating, to execute in full view so that the media know they’re being taken but submit anyway.

Continuing to bask in himself on Friday, New York’s newest hero reran his press conference--he’ll be feeding from this trough for weeks--but vowed never again to take a call like Bonilla’s. He’d been warned that if Bonilla had ended up in the river, the blame might have fallen on Stern.

Apparently, none of Stern’s underlings had notified the police about him being on the air with a man threatening to jump from the bridge. Not to worry. As it turned out, the cops were already listening to his show. Well, it’s New York.