Malone has little regard for PR
rockymountainnews.com
By Steve Caulk, News Staff Writer
John Malone, always watchful of his time and money, figures he can best conserve resources by letting people think what they want.
So Malone has become notorious for his "straightforward" manner, telling people exactly what he thinks about issues, without regard to public relations ramifications. To Malone, public relations was a colossal waste of money and manpower, and in any Malone company, PR has always operated on a shoestring budget.
"He's terrible at dealing with Washington and dealing with the press," said one source who has known him since his days at Tele-Communications Inc. (now AT&T Broadband in Englewood).
At TCI, when it became clear that the company had to make some allowance for public relations, he inserted the two handiest people, who happened to have no real PR background. Bob Thompson was a lobbyist for the cable industry in Washington who had little regard for the media. Lela Cocoros was editor of the in-house programming guide when she joined TCI in 1985 as a temporary worker, almost fresh out of college.
Cocoros remembers TCI in those early days as "a family," with easy access to Malone and his partner, Bob Magness. Malone enjoyed "an exchange of ideas"within the family, she said -- but not with the media or government regulators.
Larae Marsik, who joined TCI in 1996, described Malone as "a PR challenge."
"I would sit at my desk and down the Excedrin, trying to figure out why he had done or said the things he did or said, but he always had his reasons," she said.
Usually, the reasons boiled down to this Cocoros description of Malone:
"He doesn't put on a show or cop an attitude," she said. "He can be very stubborn and focused on one thing, and you might disagree with him, but he's very genuine when it's something he believes in. He's unpretentious and honest. He won't dress it up and make it look pretty. I have to admire that. It's not always something you want to hear, but it's who he is and what he stands for."
Public relations people often spend considerable energy trying to smooth over and maintain affable relations with the media. Malone usually refuses to give interviews and doesn't mind confronting reporters.
"He's chewed me out more than once over something we've written," said Paul Maxwell, columnist for CableFax in Denver. "Once he attacked me in an elevator, saying we shouldn't have written something."
Maxwell was actually a Malone business partner in the early 1980s, in an information-distribution company that relied on cable networks.
"I've know him a long time, and he's always been fair to deal with," Maxwell said.
Fair, but not necessarily easy.
"He says what he's thinking, so if you're his press person, you're scared to death to turn him loose in a crowd," Maxwell said.
Fortunately for the PR department, those crowd-working moments are rare for Malone. He just doesn't like it, say people who know him.
August 4, 2001 |
