I’ll Have My Spokesperson call You

Celebrities have them. Lawyers have them. The smallest of small-time actors have them. And as a result, every Tom, Dick and Harriet thinks they should have one, too: a spokesperson. You see it when the sister of a Long Beach man who kills himself in a gruesome TV freeway scene declines to meet reporters, referring them to her spokesperson, a family friend. You see it when the family of a deathly ill 8-year-old Massachusetts boy announces it has raised more than $75,000 for medical care, passing word through a spokesperson. You see it when the ex-wife of Leno LaBianca--who was stabbed to death by followers of Charles Manson in 1969--has a spokesman to handle questions not answered in her book on the murder.

Gone, it seems, are the days when everyday citizens caught in a moment of notoriety bravely faced a slew of reporters and talked for themselves.

Today, the crush of electronic and print media is so overwhelming that even some lawyers--the people who used to routinely act as spokespersons for those everyday citizens--are afraid to step into public view. They hire their own spokespersons.

And the more the public notices the use of trained media-relations types, the more regular folk seem to want a spokesperson in their hour of need.

What has happened, media watchers say, is a combination of fear and vanity: the growing wariness of a more aggressive media and the growing perception that you can’t be a “player” without a spokesperson.

“Since the press are less constrained in matters we used to consider private, the public is retreating,” says Larissa Grunig, a public relations expert and associate professor of journalism at the University of Maryland.

Adds David Dozier, a professor of public relations at San Diego State: “It’s all wrapped up in hubris and the Hollywoodization of anybody who has a claim to celebrity status, no matter how brief that might be.

“People see that others have spokespersons and it may be a sense that you have to have somebody else to do it right.”

So, more and more, people are making sure they do not face reporters on their own:

* A Scottish farmer and his wife sent someone else to speak with the Glasgow Herald about the woman’s experience of being sent to a hospital morgue while she was still alive.

* Actor Eddie Mekka, who played the supporting role of Carmine on TV’s “Laverne & Shirley,” also has a spokesperson. That was who briefed the media about an incident on “The Jamie Foxx Show,” in which Mekka began choking during a skit.

* Lawyer Sanford Gage used a spokesperson during his Los Angeles Superior Court case against Diversified Paratransit, in which a 25-year-old cabdriver won a settlement after being shot by a passenger.

* A Rancho Dominguez family asked a relative to handle the press after two of their own--a mother and her daughter--were killed by stray gang gunfire while watching television in their living room.

* In Portland, Conn., a family asked a spokesperson to tell the local media how appreciative they were of the community’s support after they lost a relative to cancer.

Academics and media watchers who have noted the rise of the spokesperson point to the increasing aggressiveness of the news business as the biggest reason growing numbers of people in the news have someone else speak for them.

With cable television and the World Wide Web, news outlets seem innumerable--meaning more reporters are vying for news, however insignificant, to fill broadcasts or publications.

Speed of communication also contributes to the change: Words can now be transmitted instantly, and then recycled over and over.

In addition, anybody involved in a news event has probably seen the television “gotcha,” in which people are confronted, on camera, with inconsistencies in their statements.

During the time when average people are most vulnerable, they are expected to be poised and articulate. By choosing someone else to handle the situation, those same people are acknowledging that they are not up to the challenge.

“It’s a buffer,” says professor Grunig.

She and others suggest an economic motivation for having a spokesperson.

“It may be that people are trying to get the best deal when they have their 15 minutes of fame,” Grunig said. “If the source thinks there may be a book deal in there somewhere, they may think it’s very important to have a spokesperson to protect their commercial interests.”

Support in a Time of Crisis

The idea of having a spokesperson has gained so much cachet that authorities and business professionals often advise it.

In its new publication, “When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide,” the U.S. Department of Justice advises parents of missing children to appoint a spokesperson “if you feel you are not able to speak alone.”

Janet Jones still feels unable to speak alone.

It was the size and noise of the army of reporters on Jones’ doorstep that caused her to retreat on April 30--the day her brother, Daniel, killed himself on live TV on an L.A. freeway overpass as a statement against HMOs.

Her spokeswoman then and now, family friend Marie Hamilton, said Janet Jones could not handle the phone calls, knocks on her door and shouted questions that greeted her moments after learning about the death of her brother.

Hamilton, who had come to Jones’ home to comfort her, agreed to step in. She prepared a brief statement expressing the family’s grief and desire for privacy, got Janet’s approval of the text, went outside and read it--and told the reporters that she would not take questions.

Janet “needed someone,” Hamilton said. “She was in no position to speak to a bunch of media hounds. Her brother had just committed suicide--she was a mess.”

Experts in the world of business public relations have long advised companies to appoint a primary and backup spokesperson in preparation for a possible emergency. Companies routinely are advised to let only the designated spokesperson speak to the media. As a result, news reports now often consist of dueling spokespersons, rather than quotes from chief executive officers.

With the proliferation of corporate spokespersons, average citizens involved in a dispute with a corporation may feel that they need someone to speak for them just to counteract the other side.

Disaster stories, for example, frequently quote spokespersons elevated from the ranks of victims, such as a family member of someone killed in a plane crash who speaks for the group and in opposition to the airline.

In the legal arena, criminal and civil trials can be seen as public relations crises to be managed, which is why spokespersons for teams of lawyers are becoming more and more common, professor Dozier said. Attorneys for Lt. Col. Oliver North used a spokesperson. So did those for junk-bond king Michael Milken.

Simpson Case Changed Perceptions

When comic Phil Hartman’s wife shot him to death and then killed herself in their Encino home in May, a public relations expert named Stan Rosenfield was there when the first reporters arrived on the scene. Rosenfield represented the couple’s estate.

It would be unrealistic to expect an estate attorney to be adept at dealing with such a drama, Rosenfield said.

“The profession goes back to Peter and Paul,” he said. “We were press agents, our job was to get our clients names in the paper, get them exposure--quality second, quantity first. We’re not press agents anymore. We’re media consultants. We’re communications experts. We’re spin doctors.”

The case that forever changed the way people talk to the media, Dozier said, was the O.J. Simpson murder trial, in which many lower-level participants used spokespersons.

That trial may also have paved the way for a change in semantics, in which people involved in a news event learned to give the label “spokesperson” to family and friends who normally play supportive roles during a crisis.

But attorneys and public relations experts say there is a danger in letting someone else--especially an untrained friend or relative--speak to the media. Sometimes, the most important skill of all is knowing when not to talk.

“If someone has not thought through a strategy and keeps talking, they could create a situation where he has put his client in a lot of jeopardy,” said criminal defense attorney Harland Braun.

Compounding the problem is that some ad-hoc spokespersons might have other reasons to keep talking; they might see a family member’s trauma as a big break.

“I think there’s an incredible drive to be on television and be a celebrity for a moment,” Braun said. “I think that’s why some of these people jump in.”

There is another, less obvious, downside to the spokesperson explosion, said journalism professor Grunig.

“It makes me sad more than it makes me chuckle to think that we’ve gotten to the point where all communication has to be mediated,” she said. “People don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust the press. We all look for ways to protect our interests.”

* Times research librarian Julia Franco contributed to this story.