Page 5 of 5
Our frequent acceptance of his perceptions has made him a success. But Margaret Singer's son knows all too well that no one holds a monopoly here. When presented with other versions of past events that differ, wholly and diametrically, from his own recollections, Singer acquiesces quickly.
"Well," he admits, "That may be true."
Sam Singer's niche as disaster's remora is a bit paradoxical. The more he's viewed as the man to call when you've well and truly wandered into a minefield, the more potential clients grow wary of appearing to have wandered into a minefield. "There's a perception that, when Sam's involved, someone is really fucked," sums up a competitor. "There are a lotta people who likely would hire him, but figure it'd telegraph they're in deep trouble."
Singer's necktie takedown approach is not for everyone. "If anything, I am too aggressive," he admits. "I tell clients right at the beginning, if you think it's too much, tell us. It's not gonna hurt our feelings." Even still, says a former employee, there are would-be clients who avoid Singer: "There is the notion he cannot be controlled."
Along with tribal art, Singer's office is brimming with newspaper ephemera. As a young man, he hoped to be a part of this world. As a middle-aged PR man, he hand-delivered client-friendly copy to a sainted, deceased San Francisco Chronicle columnist with the same last name as a northern French city. ("He was real bad with facts," Singer explains.) But that media world is dying: In California there are now more than five times as many PR specialists spinning the news as professional reporters reporting on it.
Now the salvos are fired by paid partisans, internet amateurs, or a combination of both. The attacks come fast and furious and without the quaint benefit of a printing schedule.
A hired gun who will fight back quickly and ferociously is more valuable today than ever. And, in the near future, Singer may not even need to hand-deliver stories to journalistic third-parties. Four decades after starting up at the Richmond Independent, he started up his own Richmond paper. But it's hardly independent.
Singer poached former Examiner scribe Mike Aldax to run the Richmond Standard. It is, in essence, a community newspaper covering community issues in a woefully under-covered community. "Washington Post says Richmond rappers helped birth 'syrupy, trunk-rattling tunes'" reads a recent headline. "The rappers," Singer says, "they love us!"
The Standard, however, is underwritten by Singer's client Chevron. The stories about rappers and cops talking a man down from a ledge and Warrior Harrison Barnes' youth clinic are community journalism. The stories about Chevron are overt company boilerplate. Even still, the online paper is, largely by default, Richmond's paper of record. It may yet become city residents' go-to source the next time duct tape and damp cloths are called for.
"You can be your own Gutenberg. You can tell the story exactly the way you want to," Singer says with delight. After all, "You do need that multiplicity of voices."
Singer laughs. He seems serenely happy. There will always be something to go bump in the night. There will always be damage to control. There will always be another fire to put out.
Or set.
Showing 1-4 of 4
Comments are closed.
