Ignore the new business media at your own risk

“Total Exposure”
by Gustav Larson
Amacon, 2000


At first glance, the book seems like an incisive account about the new business media environment with all its power, possibilities and potential for good – and even harm.

“Business news,” says author Gustav Larson, “isn’t the sleepy, stodgy world of newspaper stock tables it was ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago,” he adds, “business news was nowhere. Now, it’s everywhere. Average Americans are thinking about business, talking about business. And the news media are delivering more information about business to feed this growing demand. Whether you like it or not, you are part of this phenomenon.”

Larson’s setting is the Western hemisphere, and you would probably say, this does not apply to us in the Philippines.

Think again. The space where Executive Read appears delivers business stories in a lively, dynamic style. Mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies and hostile takeovers, are eye-catching news headlines. They are the stuff that brews a storm of talks in coffee shops and that feeds the rumor mill. Bank runs compete successfully with bank heists; and corporate collapse matches the breakdown of talks with communist rebels.

No doubt, our business media are as vibrant and active as their counterparts anywhere around the world. And most of our business editors and columnists have the same, if not more, clout than general interest editors and opinion leaders.

What does this mean, then? The book says “engaging the new media environment” presents tremendous opportunities for companies to gain positive exposure, but is also full of pitfalls that can derail the best laid out plans.”

And here’s the author’s inescapable point: Companies no longer have a choice of whether to engage the media or not.



In “Total Exposure,” Larson, a former executive of global PR firm Hill & Knowlton, has actually given a valuable briefing to CEOs, COOs and communications practitioners about a deeply altered and suitably alerted business media environment in both print and broadcast.

First of all, he says, the rise of the value of the business story is brought about by the emergence of “consumer-investors” – they who are interested, not only in firms’ products, but in their performance as well. Why? Because, they are thinking of investing in such companies. They want details, analyses, and insights 24 hours a day, Larson points out.

Once the pre-occupation of hard-nosed businessmen, business media has morphed into “business news as entertainment.” Watch business headlines on CNN/fn, Bloomberg and CNBC and you agree with Larson: “It’s no longer business news; it’s show business” brought to you by real-life Barbies and Kens with breathless reports on the latest merger rumor, etc.

But, he warns that the rapid expansion and increasing influence of business media have its downside. The present crop of business reporters, with scant business knowledge, no longer have the professional journalistic will to verify their facts – and so use print space or airtime to purvey baseless reports.

Some also have the “pack mentality,” according to Larson, where reporters see safety in numbers. “If everybody else is writing it or saying it, it’s O.K. for them to write it or say it.”

Is the author criticizing or giving business media ringing rebuke? No, he wants readers to have “media savvy” by understanding this new phenomenon.

So much like Sun Tzu (of the “Art of War” fame) telling us to master the terrain, the author is advising companies to deal with these new realities. For example, with the drive of reporters to get news in the raw, he counsels: Be ready for transferring media relations work from PR folks to senior executives through media training.

To deal with the easy access of non-journalists to the Internet and websites – Larson calls them “scam artists,” purveying rumors to scare away customers of a competitor – he advises: “Develop a quick-response plan for online crises.”

At the end of every chapter, the author has made it easy for readers to note the “summary of trends,” on one hand, “lessons for companies,” on the other. If you need one good media counselor, Larson is your guy.
This book of 225 pages is a must read for CEOs whose responsibility it is to keep their companies viable and growing, and for communications professionals who must come to terms with the magnified power of the business media. With such might, any enterprise must begin learning how to live in a transparent world. If you cannot hide anything anymore, you must at least master the art and science of telling the truth – well and fast.