I know what I said. We were supposed to meet Mike Tolajian in front of the third floor elevators.
But that’s not what happened.
Instead, when the elevator doors slid open onto the third floor, it was not, in fact, Michael Tolajian waiting there to greet us.
Rather, it was none other than Kirk Reynolds who was standing there.
I couldn’t hold back my smile upon seeing him.
I liked Kirk.
Just because I thought he was a bit of a f*ck-up, didn’t mean I didn’t like him.
I remember meeting Kirk while he and I were both still in the NFL.
Kirk had become the 49ers’ Director of Public Relations in 1997.
He and Jim Jorden had been friends for probably just as long.
Jim Jorden produced the San Francisco 49ers season highlight each year for NFL Films until he left and I had the opportunity to fill that role. In his role as a cameraman, Jim also flew to the West Coast just about every weekend in order to film the 49ers himself. (Frequent Flyer Miles were a big frickin' deal to Jim Jorden.)
It was Kirk Reynolds who worked hand-in-hand with Jim on those highlights, and who made sure he could film inside the 49ers locker room after each game.
Thanks in part to the access Reynolds was able to secure for him, Jim Jorden produced a magnificent NFL Films Presents feature about the lifelong friendship between 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci and Michigan State Basketball head coach Tom Izzo. Both grew up together in Iron Mountain in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The feature was probably the best thing Jim Jorden had ever produced. The Emmy Award he won for it was well-deserved.
After my first year at NFL Films, I was fortunate enough to garner mention as one of the best writers in a production company. That included numerous Emmy Award winning writers. And because of my past playing experience as a quarterback, I could relate well with current and former NFL coaches.
One year later, Jim Jorden had “resigned” following reports of his latest and last (at least as far as NFL Films went) of his extramarital affairs with a subordinate employee whose continuing employment Jorden controlled.
That summer, Kirk and I work together on a film which honored the career of three-time Super Bowl winning head coach of the 49ers: Bill Walsh.
Before graduating the NFL in 1979, Bill had previously been head coach at Stanford in 1977 and ‘78. After retiring from the coaching ranks of the NFL, Bill had returned the university known as “The Farm” where he was head coach from 1992-1994.
After his second Stanford stint, Bill returned to the 49ers. He moved into the front office where he eventually became vice-president, and then president of the organization.
In 2004, Walsh, then age 74, decided the time had come to retire from football.
I’d worked with Bill on a few projects while I was at NFL Films. He and I enjoyed the time we’d spent together and I’d gotten along well with both he and Kirk Reynolds.
I believe it may have been Kirk who recommended my name to produce a film honoring his career and Hall-of-Fame legacy.
I would rank the Bill Walsh retirement film as one of my career highlights.
Nearly a decade later, I hadn’t expected to see Kirk Reynolds standing there in the downtown San Francisco studios of the PAC-12 Network — particular considering the way in which he'd left the 49ers.
Even more downright kooky, Reynolds wasn’t in career rebuilding mode. I had no idea what position he held, but it definitely didn’t look like he was an underling.
If I’d done what Kirk was most remembered for doing, I don’t know if there’d be a chance in hell that I’d ever again want to show my face in the City of San Francisco.
More than a decade after the PAC-12 Network first went on the air, questions remain regarding its decision to bring in Kirk Reynolds as the Network's first Vice-President of Communications.
And then to learn that Kirk had already been a vice president at the PAC-12 Conference for a couple years before moving over to the Network?
The PAC-12’s missteps may have been myriad, but somehow this stumble in particular seems to stand out in defiance of both rhyme and reason.
There was a time, once, when Reynolds had a reputation as the perhaps the most well-liked public relations director of the San Francisco 49ers. But in 2004, a solid case could be made that he transformed his own reputation into that of not only one of the worst PR director in NFL history, but perhaps one of the stupidest as well.
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An online search using only the keywords “Kirk Reynolds and Video” brings up result after result regarding the scandal that became known simply as “The Tape.”
“The Tape” was produced in 2004, but it wasn’t revealed until June of 2005.
If Reynolds’ entire professional life could be distilled down into one single career-defining gaff, then the scandal which has simply become known as “The Tape” may be remembered as arguably the most egregious and embarrassing act ever committed by a public relations director on any team in any sport in the history of professional sport.
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For reasons which seem almost inexplicable, Reynolds had reportedly taken it upon himself to write and produce a 15-minute video which was, it was later claimed, ostensibly intended to help players navigate the media.
For the video, Reynolds had cast himself in the lead role. He was “The Mayor.”
It appears as though Reynolds may have been intentionally impersonating then-San Francisco Mayor (and current governor of California) Gavin Newsom.
Even more foolhardy, after allegedly misleading Newsom’s office regarding the intent and content of the video, Reynolds reportedly received permission to tape the opening scene at city hall — replete with Reynolds seated at the mayor's desk.
If Reynolds would’ve left a note for the suicide of his career, then “The Tape” probably would’ve said it all.
There’s appears to be nothing nuanced in either Reynolds’ or the racist, sexist, homophobic, all-around-bigoted aspersions cast throughout his production.
Nor does it seem as if the video offers any particular insights, challenge the viewer’s views regarding the socioeconomic dynamics of a diverse society versus a homogeneous population.
To say that there were racist jokes doesn’t really do justice to the concept; because keep in mind that these were “jokes” judged to be “racist” by W. Bush era standards — when judging something to be R-A-C-I-S-T really meant something.
The public relations director and No. 4 man in the 49ers’ power structure appears to be taking direct aim at San Francisco’s Chinese Community.
“This was not locker room humor; this was front office personnel. The athletes who took part in this skit were asked to do so by the fourth-ranking front office person in the organization,” said Dr. Harry Edwards, the pioneering sport sociologist from UC Berkeley and San Jose State who was folded into the 49ers family decades ago by Bill Walsh.
The video featured a character who Reynolds named “Suck Hung.” (Reynolds allegedly conscripted the 49ers’ Asian-American trainer George Chung to fill the role.) As you may have already guessed, “Suck Hung” appeared to embody the epitome of Asian racism with stereotypical details and xenophobic tropes which might’ve made Jerry Lewis blush — including thick glasses and buck teeth.
Then, his’ racist writing kept on rolling as Reynolds rolled in other assorted clichés.“Suck Hung” would mix up his ‘R's and ‘L’s as he uttered racial slurs and talked about voting for “Bush” in the “Erection.”
There seemed to be little ambiguity about the caricature Reynolds had contrived.
Next, the video showed Reynolds at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater — a palace practically dedicated to debauchery which the writer Hunter S. Thompson had once called“the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America.” It was there where the Mayor would preside over a wedding between a pair of topless blonde women.
“I know the courts say we can’t do this,” Mayor Reynolds says. “We make our own rules here in San Francisco.”
With that the women promptly engage in the kind of heavy petting and whatnot that viewers ought to expect… if the viewer would’ve been expecting to see a cheesecake porno.
After that, the video featured an African-American homeless man (played by 49ers linebacker Julian Peterson) begging for help.
It seemed doubtful that Reynolds was contemplating the economic inequality gap in America, as Reynolds reportedly tells the homeless man to “get a job.”
The San Francisco Giants Baseball Park would be the location for another antithetical scene After Mayor Reynolds throws out the opening pitch, the catcher then bribes “The Mayor” with a fat stack of bills and thanks Reynolds for his support of “hookers and booze.”
Then, unlike the homeless man who presumably went hungry, the Mayor and the catcher dine on caviar and champaign — paid for at taxpayer’s expense.
The final scene seemed downright surreal.
“Mayor Reynolds,” wearing only a towel, appeared a little like Baby New Year after taking a couple hits of ether.
Reynolds then looked into the camera, and, just before three topless blondes entered the scene, “The Mayor” would admonishes the fourth wall, saying:
“You do something controversial, you say something controversial, it will have an impact on this team. So remember: be mindful of your actions. What you do is not only a reflection of yourself. It’s a reflection of the San Francisco 49ers.”
And with that, the ogling man-child mayor(ish) and the three topless blondes came together (no pun intended) in a some sorta synthetically awkward group hug.
The story of “The Tape” caught fire — and touched off a firestorm — from the moment it entered the public infosphere. It commanded the front page headline of the Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:
49ers’ Personal Foul
The revelation was so big in the Bay Area that it reportedly bumped from the top headline the news that Vanity Fair Magazine had published an article the day before revealing at long last the true identity of Watergate’s “Deep Throat” as former FBI deputy director (and current Sonoma County resident at that time) W. Mark Felt.
At the state capitol, Sacramento Bee reporter Marcos Breton characterized the scandal as a videotape of a 49ers official cavorting in a series of guttural skits no more enlightened than a minstrel show.
In a statement, 49ers team owners Denise Debartolo-York and husband John York, seemed to waste no time getting out in front of the congealing crisis. They quickly issued a statement in which they publicly denounced the video as both offensive and inexcusable. The statement read, in part:
"Ostensibly, the video was created to raise player awareness about how to deal with the media and to demonstrate by example how poor conduct can unintentionally make news… Unfortunately, this video is an example in itself.”
“We deeply regret that anyone from our organization would produce such senseless, inexcusable material… The individuals responsible for producing the video have left or are leaving our employment.”
The NFL subsequently issued a separate statement which echoed the York’s:
"We share their view that the video was inappropriate, offensive in every respect, and of no value whatsoever," the league said. "It does not reflect the 49ers' values and traditions or those of the league and its member clubs."
After viewing “The Tape” for himself, Gavin Newsom publicly said of Reynolds: “What an idiot.”
Newsom went on to say:
“It wasn't right to do it to the Asian community, particularly the Chinese community,. It was wrong to do it to the gay and lesbian community. It was wrong to exploit women as they were exploited in this video. The video is reprehensible.”
Reynolds reportedly resigned before he could be fired.
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A few months later, Kirk Reynolds had apparently flown down to the Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly at Jim Jorden’s invitation, when he showed up at a production department party held at the lake house of Al Francesco, the company’s lead cameraman and head of the camera department who’d left NFL Films for NASCAR at the same time that I had.
At that point, we’d both been at NASCAR Media Group for about six months. Jim Jorden had been the company’s executive producer since, I believe, early 2004.
There were other ex-NFL’ers there as well. I remember that most of us thought that Reynolds was there because Jorden was campaigning for NASCAR to hire him to fill the role of Public Relations Director for the sport’s production arm.
But I remember that there were also a number of former-Films folks who’d known Jim a longer than I had and who’d wondered if perhaps there was more to the story. I remember several of them mentioning to me that regardless of whether or not it was a job hunt which had brought Reynolds to Charlotte, they wondered if perhaps there’d been more to “The Tape” story than what had been reported.
And though its now been nearly twenty years after the story first made headlines, I’ve yet to come across any mention of anybody from the 49ers franchise other than Reynolds himself who lost their job as a result of “The Tape.” That’s odd, because I would’ve expected to have seen members of the Niners’ video production department shown the exit as well.
After all, somebody had to shoot the video…
Yet if (and it’s a big, indeterminant “if”) it hadn’t been somebody from the 49ers who was responsible for shooting “The Tape” (and thus mayhap shot their careers in the foot as well), then is it possible Reynolds might’ve known somebody else who may happened to have been not only an experienced camera operator, but whose specialty happened to be shooting sound-sync'd 24fps camera/realtime video?
Regardless, Reynolds did not go to work at NASCAR.
That’s because sometimes, no matter how badly they may f*ck up, they somehow always seem to f*ck upward.
Reynolds apparently became the Director of Communications at “SC Consultants Investing, LLC.,” a private equity group which appeared to hunker down in its own little black box and ride out the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
In August of 2010, Reynolds reportedly became the PAC-10 Conference’s new Vice-President of Public Relations.
It’s unclear how Reynolds managed to land this gig.
After all, the requirements must’ve been myriad.
Yet paradoxically, it would only stand to reason that the most likely place to find the most qualified candidates probably shouldn’t have been far. The PAC-10, as the name implies, was comprised of twelve of the top universities on the Pacific Coast. Each and every school featured faculty with PhDs specializing in such areas as international relations, marketing, and yes, most germane to this discussion, public relations and communications.
And there were other top tier avenues to seek qualified candidates from as well.
One such option? Even though it’s dwarfed by Los Angeles to the south, the Bay Area nevertheless was still one of the top media markets in the nation.
And when it came to professional sports, the Bay Area boasted seven professional sports franchises at that time: the San Francisco 49ers & Oakland Raiders of the NFL; the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball; the Golden State Warriors of the NBA; and the San Jose Sharks of the NHL.
Yet unlike those professional entities, the PAC-10 Conference was, well, a conference. It wasn’t a single team. That meant that there wasn’t just one organization to keep track of, such as the Niners, Raiders, Giants, A’s, Warriors, or Sharks; there were ten.
But then, there weren’t just ten teams. There were 24 sports that competed in the PAC-10. That meant that the job required keeping track of 240 teams divided among ten universities — with each university operating under ten different athletic directors and ten different school presidents.
That’s in part because the PAC-10 Conference was unlike professional teams in that the Conference was a nonprofit 501(c)3 educational institution. That’s unlike professional sports which are revenue-driven… ish.
Financially, there are only two NCAA sports that are considered to be “revenue sports.” They are (as you could probably guess) football and men’s basketball. (There are also universities across the midwest, northeast, and the Rocky Mountains where men’s hockey returns a modest revenue as well.) That means that all of the other sports are considered “non-revenue sports.” Because of that, and because of 501(c)3 federal guidelines, the two “revenue sports” are required to help fund the 22 “non-revenue sports.”
To this end, PAC-10 Commissioner Larry Scott was reportedly determined to raise the profile of the PAC-10 Conference by raising the profile of the 22 non-revenue generating sports.
But doing so would require some economic gymnastics. Somehow, the PAC-12 would need to spread out the revenue distribution of football and basketball, yet at the time dampen their exposure in order to promote the non-revenue sports which, speaking strictly from a financial perspective, were akin to 22 money pits (Well, technically, 264 money pits.)
So compared to professional sports, college athletics seems to be both completely different and simultaneously the same. It’s a defining difference.
Certainly for some, it must’ve seemed ridiculous to suggest that Kirk Reynolds’ candidacy could’ve been seriously considered; considering the fact that in the eyes of many who remembered what happened in June of 2005, Reynolds’ reputation had been galvanized by a renegade video tape which looked like 15-minute homoerotic homophobic racist, misogynistic, anti-government cheesecake porno?
How did Reynolds, someone whose totality of educational qualifications consisted of a bachelor’s degree in communications from UC Santa Barbara, wind up becoming a network vice president for a 501(c)3 educational institution?
Forget the fact that Reynolds was proclaimed the PAC-12 Network’s perfect PR pick. Maybe the real question is: Why was Reynolds considered qualified for the job at all?
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One intriguing clue can be found in the 2010-11 PAC-10 Basketball Media Guide. Found on page 87, it would appear that Reynolds’ resumé may have been lightly laundered. His bio now read, “He spent eight years (1997-2004) with the San Francisco 49ers, including the final six as director of public relations.”
Remember that “The Tape” scandal hit the headlines in June of 2005. Reynolds resigned from the 49ers organization soon thereafter. But according to Reynolds’ rewritten resumé, he wasn’t even there in 2005. And a the stain which might’ve ended most careers instead appears to have been washed away.
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It could’ve been said that practically from the moment he was introduced as NASCAR’s new executive producer, Jim Jorden may have already been funneling some fraction of his attention and his department’s budget into pursuing college football production opportunities.
Dating back to when I’d first started at NASCAR, I’m not sure I can even remember how many times Jorden told me himself about all the times when he’d taken company property to go on numerous high school, NCAA, and NFL football shoots.
It may also be said that in Mid-November of 2010 and almost as soon as driver Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 Team of Hendrick Motorsports had hoisted their record-extending fifth-straight Cup Series title, Jorden jettisoned much of his remaining interest in racing, and shifted into high gear, funneling an ever-greater fraction of the production department’s budget into his pursuit of converting NASCAR Media Group into something akin to College Football Films.
On January 2, 2011, Jorden is believed to have headed down to Miami, Florida for the Orange Bowl between PAC-10 champion Stanford (11-1) and ACC champion Virginia Tech (11-2).
I remember that it was Jorden himself who confessed to us that he’d deliberately misrepresented himself by falsely claiming he was with NFL Films in order to convince Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh and quarterback Andrew Luck to wear a wire throughout the game.
In a post-9/11 world, what Jorden allegedly claimed to have done was no little white lie. Both credential fraud and illegal electronic surveillance can be considered serious federal crimes.
According the U.S. Department of Justice, 18 U.S.C. § 2511 “prohibits the interception of wire, oral, and electronic communications and the subsequent disclosure or use of illegally intercepted communications.” Under 47 U.S.C. § 502, federal law “punishes willful and knowing violations of Federal Communication Commission regulations”
I’ve never been able to figure out whether or NASCAR was unaware of what Jorden was doing, whether they knew what he was up to, or whether they were just happy to wallow in plausible deniability.
Nor do I know what role, if any, Kirk Reynolds may have played.
But again: you need understand what it appears that Jorden himself allegedly claimed to do: an executive producer of one major revenue sport (NASCAR) allegedly claimed falsely that he was credentialed with a different major revenue sport (NFL) in order to illegally electronically record members of a third major revenue sport (NCAA Football).
Either way, what I remember most was how even at the time, the whole affair just felt so sordid and seemed so bizarre.
Then, I remember that it got worse instead of better.
The NASCAR Cup Series has never raced on Easter Weekend. It is, after all, generally considered a fundamentally Christian sport.
And so I’d scheduled a weekend-long shoot to cover a grassroots level racing event for a “NASCAR Americana” feature I intended to produce.
Just imagine my emotions when, at 5:00am on the morning of Good Friday, I learned that there was no camera crew. And there were no cameras. I was unable to do my job with NASCAR because Jim Jorden had allegedly ordered every camera crew and every camera out to the Left Coast in order to shoot spring football practices for the PAC-10.
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In July, 2011, Jim Jorden and NASCAR officially (some might say finally), parted ways.
The details of the departure appeared hazy and obscured by a fog of non-disclosure agreements and rumors of a remarkably generous severance package.
Like an STD that just won’t go away, it unfortunately merits mention that Jorden was allegedly seen to be yet again flaunting yet another extramarital adulterous affair with yet another younger woman whose paycheck was dependent on Jorden’s continuing good will.
(NOTE: It’s thought to be a fairly common characteristic among alleged serial adulterers that they grew older, their perpetual predatory sexual proclivities may drive them to seek out and/or target increasingly younger and younger women. But an adulterer who would criminally threaten and sexualize a fifteen-year-old girl might find that they’ve shifted into a different category altogether.)
Moreover, the severance package, if true, might have been even more remarkable, considering that Jorden was believed to have departed under a cloud of suspicion and rumors of criminal conduct).
The criminal allegations would’ve seemed ridiculous… except for the fact that I remember well when Jim waved me into his office, shut the door, and told me the story of his victimization. I remember that it seemed like he was doing his darnedest to manipulate me. I don’t know why he was. Maybe he hoped that I’d spread his bullshit around and fertilize all the other uncaring minds.
I’m not sure he understood that an overwhelming number of people seemed to express their deep relief as soon as it was announced that he Jorden was gone.
I’m pretty sure he blamed me because of the whole Easter Weekend shoot.
Except I distinctly remember having told nobody.
On the other hand, Jorden’s minions were said to have told virtually everybody.
Over the intervening years, I’ve found cold comfort in the memory that the final straw said to send Jim packing was because it was reportedly his own pac(k) of mean girl minions — allegedly led by none other than Rory Karpf himself — petitioned the 20th Floor for Jorden’s expulsion…and won.
Why do I believe these allegations?
Because I distinctly remember most of them telling me.
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I don’t remember my thoughts drifting to the 2011 Orange Bowl when the elevator doors open and I saw Kirk Reynolds standing there.
Instead I wondered about “The Tape.”
How in the hell did he somehow manage to walk away from that train wreck?
Well…It may have been that Reynolds was never in any real danger.
Several sports writers seemed to rally to Reynolds’ defense.
Numerous articles and posts appeared in the days immediately after the revelation of “The Tape.” They’re mostly by sports writers.
“Does anybody else out there wonder what all the fuss is about or why such a thing would be national news? …Me too.”
— Marcos Breton, Sacramento Bee
“San Francisco's well-liked public relations director is on his way out of the organization after producing a controversial in-house video meant to prepare players for dealing with the media.
— Associated Press / ESPN.com
“What an absolute crock, the flogging of the San Francisco 49ers and firing of public relations director Kirk Reynolds over a humorous video that was never meant for public consumption.”
— Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star
“Is the film racist, sexist and homophobic? That depends on who you ask. But, if you ask the players, they'll tell you no. And that's all that matters, because that's who the video was made for.”
— Michael Holst, Lodi-News Sentinel
“Let this be a lesson to aspiring NFL public relations directors, don't aim too high…”
— Steve Never, Covers Experts on the Web
“Kirk Reynolds, in my experience the NFL’s best PR guy, noticed the players were not listening when he talked about the media. So five years ago he began making humorous videos to get their attention.”
— T.J. Simers, LA Times
“I thought it was one of the funniest things I ever saw. The locker room is like a fraternity. The outside world can't really judge that.”
— Mike Rumpf, cornerback, San Francisco 49ers
Wait. “five years ago he began making ‘humorous’ videos…”
Five frickin' years ago?
So, there could be five of these frickin' things running around out there?!?
Many of these members of the media tended to emphasize in their articles and posts the following: (I’m paraphrasing here):
1) “This was just another example of the Liberal Left getting their panties in a bunch because ‘The Tape’ might not’ve been, strictly speaking, ‘politically correct’”;
2) “Kirk Reynolds was the best PR guy in the NFL”;
3) “Well I happened to think that ‘The Tape’ wasn’t even all that offensive”;
4) “‘The Tape’ was ‘locker room humor’ which the Public was never even supposed to know about”;
5) “What people don’t understand is that this was basically the only way Reynolds could reach players who are otherwise unable to learn”;
6) “A lot of the players later said that ‘The Tape’ was pretty damn funny.”
In response, I’ve taken the liberty of including an answer key:
A1) B: FALSE
A2) B: FALSE
A3) Maybe don’t say the quiet part out loud.
A4) Translation: “We were trying to be bigoted behind closed doors.”
A5) Translation: “Ah, yes, I, too, like to racism.”
A6) Guess it kinda looks like the players might’ve missed the “lesson” that “The Tape” was supposed to teach.
Ultimately, Reynolds seems to cite everything from “diversity” to “dealing with the media” in his apparent attempt to explain what he was trying to teach.
Unfortunately, none of his reasons seem to make much sense.
That being said, however, not all of the blowback was willing to allow Reynolds to breeze by so fair-weathered.
On June 2, 2005, only a day after the story broke, writer King Kaufman of the online magazine Salon pretty much nailed it:
So what else is there to say about this sensitivity training video that's a walking definition of irony, a perfect example of the very things it's supposed to be teaching its viewers to avoid?
I like nudity, profanity and general offensiveness as much as the next guy, but it's beyond obvious that a training tape in a professional environment, in one of the highest-profile professions around, wasn't the place for any of those things.
It's a screw-up a 20-year-old R.A. in a college dorm shouldn't make, never mind a trained media professional in one of the most progressive cities in the country. It's distressing that this sort of thing still isn't decades behind us. We can accept Reynolds' apology or not, but either way there's no excuse.
I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that what was really happening in the tape was Reynolds displaying hostility to the ideas he claimed on camera and claims now to believe in.
And so, Reynolds’ approach appeared to be essentially the opposite of the ‘right way’ to teach & talk about media relations.
On June 29, 2005, Andrew Gilman, then-president of Washington DC-based CommCore Consulting posted an article for PR News entitled “PR Pros Need to Recover from 49ers’ Fumble.” Gilman wrote:
Our job as trainers is not to ridicule a profession in which many of us have worked hard and that we still respect. Our job is to help clients understand the press and to get fair coverage.
However, the profession can use this scandal as an example to reinforce what's supposed to occur in effective media training -- and to avoid a few potholes in the road to solid media relations:
• Training videos have a role. First rule: There's no substitute for in person, on-camera training and critique. But as a refresher or when budgets are tight, a how-to video with suggested "Qs" and suggested "As" has a role.
• No Jokes. If you wouldn't say it on CNN, don't say it in training — on- or off-camera. The purpose of media training is to improve the skills of spokespeople through serious practice and critique. Practicing scenarios that make fun of fans, clients, customers or issues serves no valid purpose.
• Ask the toughest — not the dumbest — questions. The best media training sessions are those that focus on a specific issue or interview. It's not enough to teach generic bridging techniques. A good trainer can anticipate the questions and how a specific reporter will ask the questions.
• “Chain of Custody" matters. At the end of the training session, make sure to collect all of the training tapes or hand them over to responsible parties. Because training often occurs in a multi-purpose conference room or in a hotel room, check the VCRs for any of the tapes. Even your own personnel may get the wrong message if they accidentally view a training interview without the context of the entire session.
• Teach about relationships with the media. Rather than encourage the contempt or ridicule of a reporter or publication, teach clients how to develop the relationship.
“The Tape” seemed to align with none of Gilman’s guidelines.
Intriguingly, after “The Tape” was revealed to the Public, Reynolds was quoted again and again as saying essentially, “Anybody who knows me knows that’s not who I am.”
Now, normally, once the Mask slips, it’s not so easy to put it back on.
But Reynolds managed to do so with seemingly seamless ease as he moved on from the 49ers catastrophe and into the same role with a private equity firm. Then, he moved on again and into the upper-echelon of the PAC-10 where his San Francisco sins seemed washed away. Finally he moved back to San Francisco itself thanks to a lateral move from Vice-President of the PAC-10 Conference to Vice-President of the PAC-12 Network.
In 2016, Reynolds would leave the PAC-12 Network. One year later, he and Jim Jorden would reunite to once again tab Jim Harbaugh — now head coach at the University of Michigan — for a series produced for Amazon Prime Video in which Jim Jorden Productions would not merely embed with the Wolverines for one game; but for the entire 2017 season.
[NOTE: It’s believed that sociopaths will return to previous victims in order to prey upon them again and again. Oftentimes, sociopaths have been known to inculcate their victims in order to make it appear as though they were aware of, shared responsibility, or were active participants.]
As I write this on January 8, 2024, the Washington Huskies are about to play the last game in PAC-12 history as they kick off against the University of Michigan Wolverines and head coach Jim Harbaugh to decide College Football’s National Championship.
Don’t be surprised if Jim Jorden is once more prowling the sidelines.
Heck, he might even convince Coach Harbaugh to once more wear a wire.
That’s great stuff, Sean. It’s a long read, but fascinating.
Thank You Tom!
Yeah, I agree that it's long and I didn't mean for it to be almost 5K words. But I couldn't bring myself to split it AGAIN after splitting it once already.