It’s an amazing story. A stubby, unshaven guy who wears a baseball cap pulls off one of the greatest public relations coups in the history of the film industry. Michael Moore managed, by dumb luck or Machiavellian cunning or a combination of the two, to win front-page headlines for Fahrenheit 9/11 again and again and again, week after week after week. This is an amazing story, and a case study of how to achieve maximum publicity for your movie. College communications courses will be pointing to this story for years to come.
June 16, 2004
The Discussion: 6 Comments
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1
By Conrad
As should journalism classes, as a example of effect of the liberal bias in the mainstream media.
June 17, 2004 @ 12:23 am | Comment
2
By Michael
Yeah. I can see the course offering now.
Case studies in demagoguery and self-aggrandizement: Michael Moore playing to the mob
June 17, 2004 @ 4:16 am | Comment
3
By vaara
“Moore could very well be borrowing from the Gibson’s Passion playbook. Make a movie about a hugely controversial topic. Makes sure the people most likely to be offended hear about it. And then sit back as the outraged hordes flock to the box office. ”
As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
June 17, 2004 @ 4:19 am | Comment
4
By richard
Michael, unfortunately those are, in part, what PR is about. Most of the PR, however, was not about self-aggrandizement. It was about the film’s content, in terms of the MPAA rating system, and about Disney’s refusal to allow Miramax to distribute the film. Therein lies the real marvel of this episode: Moore could just stand on the sidelines, and new life kept getting breathed into the story.
June 17, 2004 @ 7:50 am | Comment
5
By jeremy
You’re right Richard, Moore is a PR machine unto himself. I keep meaning to blog on his movies – the Big One and Bowling for Columbine have been on cable a lot lately – but I think the better PR geniuses are the companies that handle his guerilla tactics well.
In The Big One, Nike’s CEO Phil Knight met Moore and held his own in a one-on-one interview. Yes, Moore kept bringing up his point – bring jobs to Flint – but Knight’s arguments rang true – they say they want the jobs, but they don’t want these type of low-level jobs.
That’s the PR victory – taking the fight to Moore. Plus, statistics lie, and he likes to use statistics a lot.
June 17, 2004 @ 10:08 am | Comment
6
By richard
Moore abuses statistics without shame, and Spinsanity has taken him to task many times for fiddling with history to get his points across. Where I hear this film differs from his past efforts is that it’s mainly clips that speak for themselves, with little of Moore’s typical bloviating. We’ll see.
Conrad, as to it being a case study on the power of liberal media — more noise has been made about this movie by Matt Drudge than anyone else. Conservative blogs all piped in too, contributing to the groundswell of publicity. Oh, and I hope you saw the Fox News review! Left wing media — indeed.
June 17, 2004 @ 4:40 pm | Comment