In Announcing Unfavorable News, Timing Is Everything

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Times:

In the celebrated tradition of dumping unfavorable news on holidays, weekends or days when the media is otherwise preoccupied, New York City’s political folk spun a little frenzy before ducking out on Christmas Eve.

 

At the beginning of the day, Chiara de Blasio released a video announcing her struggles with substance abuse and depression. At the end of the day, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, publicly called it quits after 26 years of marriage.

 

Only Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg could say the timing of his announcement was not deliberate: His daughter Georgina gave birth to a boy on Tuesday after sundown.

 

Whether looking for sympathy or for silence, it is not a coincidence that publicists choose Dec. 24 to speak.

 

“The day that has most good will toward men and women is Christmas,” said Mortimer Matz, 89, a ceaselessly working publicist, who said he helped start the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest.

 

On Wednesday, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, again deflected questions about the timing and production of the video in which their daughter discusses her personal troubles. In a brief interview outside their home, Mr. de Blasio said that the couple had received “a lot” of phone calls of support and that the responses have been “moving.”

 

“We had some people telling us their kids had had similar challenges and it was really important for someone in the public eye to acknowledge that these challenges exist,” he said.

 

Whether Mr. de Blasio’s tightly controlled release of the news of a family issue will portend how he makes uncomfortable announcements during his tenure is yet to be seen. The Bloomberg administration, said Mr. Bloomberg’s former press secretary, Stu Loeser, has a policy of not announcing news after noon on Friday, so as not “to appear to be ducking it.”

 

Some politicians, meanwhile, choose days just to claim the spotlight. Senator Charles E. Schumer has perfected the fine art of holding Sunday news conferences.

 

Of all days, though, Friday is the one of avoidance, if not the best to clean out a desk. Two appointees of Gov. Chris Christie, both officials with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who were involved in the scandal to close local lanes from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge, resigned on subsequent Fridays this month.

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To dump or not to dump...