The danger of being quoted out of context

By on June 2nd, 2008 In Hype!

There’s no guarantee that you or our media-trained spokesperson will be given the luxury of ‘context’ when interviewed, edited and and the story is pushed through the sound-byte hungry media conduit. The phrase “taken out of context” is a complaint that we often hear about, and again. Last week there were two of them.

  • Chuck Porter, of the hip ad agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky was quoted in Fast Company in a way that made it look like the CPB and its parent company were up for sale. He claims FC presented his statement out of context, but the magazine stands by what it has written.
  • Hillary Clinton says the same of her ‘assassination’ comment, in an Op-Ed piece last week.

The practice of ‘contextomy‘ is so widely used (think dust jacket reviews for books, movie ads..) it doesn’t look like the claim of bring misrepresented / taken out of context is a useful defense anymore. I mean the complaint “that’s not what I meant” may be valid, but will not add back the context in a useful way, and seldom dispels doubt. I didn’t even realize the word contextomy existed –yes it sounds like some painful surgery — but whenever I interview someone for an article I try to throw in the phrase like “could you put that in context?” and follow up with an email to make sure I got it right. I can’t see that happening in a shrinking news cycle, though.

Comments

Dan Wool Says:
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:46 am

A sad reminder that it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear. I think the whole thing was vicim of the ridiculous presidential media circus. I mean was this seriously as bad as what Mike Huckabee said about Obama when he spoke recently to the NRA?

barry kluger Says:
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 am

i have been in the communications/crisis pr business for 30 years and “i was taken out of context” is one of the most over-used tactics of back peddling when an executive SAID IT but now wants to cover their ass. It’s kind of like when people resign from jobs “to pursue other business interests.” we usually called that FIRED!

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