Arnold Schwarzenegger, American Media, and Me
Keith Kelly wrote in yesterday's NYP media column about the strange incident involving American Media and confidentiality agreements.
(I'd link to it, but the Post charges you for stories that are a day old. Doesn't Rupert Murdoch have enough money?)
So I'll just quote Keith extensively.
(Necessary back story: American Media is the publisher of various gossip and weightlifting magazines, and the company that signed Arnold Schwarzenegger to a secret $8 million consulting deal just days before he became governor.)
Keith Kelly: "Insiders at American Media said that as the company began to sweat over how to deal with the disclosure [of Schwarzenegger's deal], many ex-employees said they were surprised to suddenly receive warning letters from American Media informing them that they were still bound by their confidentiality obligations to the publisher. The letters went out on July 7 to hundreds of employees—from lowly assistants and secretaries to top executives.
"A spokesman for American media, Stuart Zakim, said that there was 'absolutely no connection' between the warning letters on July 7 and the Schwarzenegger disclosure a week later.
"'It was just a reminder that we do periodically,' he insisted of the letters."
Well, we can just write off that disclaimer as PRBS. (You can figure that out.) The letters were obviously an attempt to intimidate employees who might have known something about the Arnold deal from talking to the press. It isn't be the first time American Media has attempted to intimidate its employees;
as I wrote back in April, the company actually sued to stop an ex-employee from writing a novel because it was rumored to be a send-up of AMI editor Bonnie Fuller.
I've mentioned before the ironies in a company that publishes Star and the National Inquirer trying to stop its employees from speaking to the press....
But the problem with confidentiality agreements goes beyond mere irony. They are a real threat to the practice of journalism and historiography in this country. Again,
to quote myself, confidentiality agreements are increasingly used by the powerful to silence the powerless. And yet, no one seems to make a fuss about them.
As some of you may know, I've had my own run-ins with a confidentiality agreement. In my case, a document intended for one thing was deliberately distorted by people who hadn't written or signed it to try to keep me from writing a book—and those people were almost successful.
Now Arnold Schwarzenegger is using confidentiality agreements to keep his staff from talking about him, and AMI is using them...also to keep their staff from talking about Arnold. Now we know one reason why: Because the governor of the nation's largest state received an $8 million payoff (and was there any actual work involved on his part?) which may well have affected his veto of a piece of legislation.
I'm sure there are instances where confidentiality agreements are important: business transactions, for example. More and more, though, they're just insidious.
