“What’s this about interviews?” I asked.
“This is a PR gold mine,” Frank said a little too excitedly.
“Better than stealing the Millennium Falcon?” I asked.
“No, not even close,” Frank admitted.
At least he didn’t try to lie to me.
“David, this gives your friends in the business a boost of exposure. With you, Halle, Zak, and Leah here, it helps promote your movie coming out. I was able to get a number of clients to donate dresses, so there is also that angle,” Adrienne added to Frank’s excitement.
“So, this is good for you?” I teased.
“Of course it is.”
“Who’s my date?” I asked to change the topic.
“There was a problem with that …” Adrienne sputtered.
I turned to Tami.
“Want to go to Prom with me?” I asked.
“David, I don’t even have a dress,” Tami complained.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Adrienne said. “Someone will be here tomorrow. I just have to confirm they finished their shoot early.”
I wasn’t reassured in the least.
“We can leave early and hit the mall,” I suggested to Tami.
“Like they’re going to have anything left,” Tami complained. “Let Adrienne find you a date.”
That whole ‘not in control’ issue was starting to come to the forefront. Tami read me like a book.
“If she doesn’t find you a date, I’ll go. I have a dress at home that would work,” she said.
“I don’t want you to feel like you’re a backup plan or something,” I said, worried how this looked.
They all laughed at me. Yeah, it was way too late to pull that one off. I just gave up and followed Frank.
I was surprised when Frank pulled me into a small conference room. He shut the door and motioned for me to sit down in one of the chairs, then sat down next to me.
“I have an update for you on our contingency planning for Operation CP,” he said.
I’m sure I looked confused.
“CP, as in counterpunch,” he said. “We figured it was better than ‘Operation Feminazi.’”
I snorted in amusement.
“We’ve put together several short video clips. Each of the clips shows the actual questions and answers relating to the four areas we expect them to attack you on. Those are the feminist movement, rape, abuse, and sports. As soon as we find out which issues they’re reporting on, the appropriate clips will be immediately emailed to the news outlet. We will also send along some additional supporting material.
“Included in that additional material will be a summary of the videographer’s activities and criminal history, complete with mug shots. Next will be a video of the comments they made while they were loading up their car to leave. That clip makes it crystal clear that they plan to heavily edit their footage to make you look as bad as possible.
“The next item in the package will be the stick. Ms. Dixon used her firm’s document drafting system to generate a letter that can be tailored to the particular issues raised by the media with a few simple keystrokes. Once the name and address of the media contact are put in, it takes less than a second for the document to exist. It can be printed out or attached to an email immediately.
“You’ll like this. The letters say, in polite lawyer-ese: ‘You now have the true facts and are aware that what the two women created is a lie. If you publish or present their information as though it is true, we will be happy to own a large piece of your outlet,’” Frank said, warming to his task.
I thought we didn’t plan to attack the media, but I paid them for a reason. Frank seemed to be in his element; he lived for situations like these. I think he liked the slick system Ms. Dixon’s firm had for creating letters.
“Your lawyers and I have put together a summary document outlining what happened from our perspective. It directs anyone who reads it to your website and other social media. There we will have all the footage, including the raw unedited footage.
“Once we have the clips the two women are using, we’ll have a team ready to put together tailored responses. It should only take an hour, two at most, to have those available to the media and on your website as well,” Frank explained.
Frank leaned back and took a deep breath. It sounded like they’d been busy.
“The problem we face is the media tends to circle the wagons to protect their own. We have to be careful, or they’ll protect these women out of principle. What we’re doing here is showing them a way to distance themselves by saying, ‘it’s not us, it’s them, and we don’t need to protect them.’ Then hopefully, the mainstream outlets will throw the two women to the wolves,” Frank explained.
The last thing I wanted was to go to war with the press. Without creating some allies, this could go south on us.
“Now, we also talked about offering a carrot. If they report fairly, we’ll give them more information down the road. Especially if they include a link to your website in their reporting so the address is readily available to their viewership. For example, if CBS plays it straight, we’ll cooperate if they want to do a 60 Minutes report on malicious reporting,” Frank continued.
“Do you think that’ll really work?” I asked.
“Not everything will go according to plan; it never does. You should expect some station will have a sensation-monger who’ll try to capitalize on this and go after you with the ginned-up videos. Ms. Dixon has already drafted a boilerplate defamation lawsuit, though, and will be able to file on Monday anywhere we need to. That’s to send a message, more than anything else,” he said.
I had an errant thought: ‘That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.’ I hoped it wouldn’t be quite like that.
Frank had finally run down, but then he smiled.
“By the way, your mom’s been intimately involved in this. I think she’s better than any field general who ever ran an army.”
If only he knew, I thought, shaking my head.
“What you’re telling me is that you’re as prepared as you can be, you have a plan everybody has agreed to, and my mom is on board.”
“Yep,” he agreed.
It felt good to know that I had people and family that had my back. I extended my hand, and Frank shook it.
“Thank you. Honestly, I would have no idea what to do if it hadn’t been for you, Ms. Dixon, and everyone else. I get how serious this is, and I’m aware that you all have worked hard to get us prepared. And as much as I expect that the press will do the right thing, I realize that’s just wishful thinking. I really hate that I have to go to such lengths to protect my name. Please tell everyone how much this means to me,” I said.
Frank looked a little taken aback, but I could tell that he appreciated that I acknowledged what everyone was doing for me. Like I said, I really did hope that we didn’t have to pull out the stick. If I had to, though, I would. I couldn’t let this kind of attack go unanswered.
Then Frank said something I’d been holding back on saying.
“This caught us flatfooted. I promise it won’t happen again,” he assured me.
“Well, I should have bailed as soon as I recognized the woman. I have some responsibility in all this,” I added to make Frank feel better.
◊◊◊
We exited the conference room and continued to where the interviews were being held. Tami and Adrienne had stayed in the lobby to direct everyone to where they needed to go.
I had a moment of concern when I thought about the two of them comparing notes. Then I smiled again. It was nice to leave things in the hands of capable people so I could instead be concerned over two girls comparing notes on me.
The first conference room was where Access Hollywood was set up. We did a quick five-minute interview, and then it was off to the next one. I was glad this was just a fluff piece. The usual suspects were there, and I spent almost an hour talking to everyone. Frank probably regretted not giving me talking points. I explained how ‘Operation Prom’ had come about and that it was a way for my friends at Lincoln High to meet my friends from Hollywood and modeling. I was careful not to bring up football because I didn’t want to have this cause any additional problems with the NCAA.