Thomas Hardy, former press secretary for Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, last month joined Burson-Marsteller as a director with the Chicago office's media practice, where he works with six employees. Prior to working in the government sector, Hardy worked for two decades at the Chicago Tribune. PR NEWS recently spoke with Hardy about his media relations philosophies.
PRN: Why did you decide to leave the government for a PR job in the private sector?
Hardy: When I left the Tribune after 20 years, I was looking for something different. I went to work for Gov. Edgar and I thought he would be running for reelection and winning it, or running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He was going on 51 and was at the height of his popularity, so it took everyone, including me, by surprise when he announced he wasn't going to seek another term.
That was six months after I came on board (in the summer of 1997). I decided to stay with him through the next legislative session, which ended in May, and then I stayed through September to tie up any loose ends.
PRN: Were you looking for a job in PR that entire time?
Hardy: I knew when I left the paper that I wanted a different career and I figured that a director of media affairs role in some government capacity would provide a great learning experience and help me bridge the gap between journalism and what I would do with the rest of my life. Edgar's decision not to vie for the gubernatorial seat just accelerated that process. The kind of work that Burson-Marsteller does interested me because I was looking for something that would utilize my background, and because of Burson's diverse client base such as telecommunication companies and government entities.
PRN: How long did it take you to find the Burson job?
Hardy: Jim McAvoy (chairman of the BM media practice division) and I had known each other and became reacquainted in 1995 while I was covering the presidential campaign and he was doing work for Phil Gramm (R-Texas). Later he approached me and we talked about [working at BM]. Over the course of a few months, I looked at this opportunity and some others that presented themselves, and then I made the decision.
PRN: Of the various hats communicators wear (i.e., public affairs director; media relations manager; VP of IR), which do you think most closely resembles the press secretary's - or is there one?
Hardy: Probably some combination of public affairs and media relations, but still the role is a fairly unique one. I ran a staff of 10 and we handled everything from proclamations and speech writing to planning media events. But I was also the chief spokesperson and the person coordinating activities for the PIOs (public information officers) for the agencies that came under that office. I basically had a ball-and-chain to my pager, which went off at any and all times. The media is always out there working on some story.
PRN: What was the toughest media challenge you had?
Hardy: Two things come to mind. There was this scandal, so to speak, investigated by the feds. The government had charged two or three people in middle management of the Illinois Depart.ment of Public Aid with fraud. They were charged with accepting bribes for a sweetheart contract on public aid benefits programs. That contractor had provided some smaller cash contributions to Gov. Edgar, and it became a bigger story when gasoline was thrown on the fire and the governor was subpoenaed to testify. Handling that was tough.
Eventually, the case was resolved through plea agreements or convictions (the federal witness was convicted, but his testimony wasn't trusted by jurors so no one higher-up was implicated). But this was still a tough case since this was the first time a governor of Illinois had been called to testify in a criminal case.
Apart from those two trials, the other meaty challenge was when the governor had quadruple bypass surgery. He got chest pains in June and had to go in the hospital for tests - for a recurring condition - for four days. This was an extremely tense period for several reasons. Any time you have an elected leader who has health problems, the question lingers about whether he or she can do their job. Second, the lieutenant governor had resigned, so the line of succession issue came up.
PRN: Because of the issues that you deal with and the fact that you literally serve at the governor's pleasure, I imagine this could be a job you could walk away from either loving or hating the person for whom you work. Did you end up getting close to Edgar, to becoming a confidant?
Hardy: There is constant give-and-take because you don't want to screw up so badly in a news conference or briefing, for example, that you become a liability. You also have to think about how he - not you - would answer a certain question. And not just how it's going to play with the public, but how it's going to play with members of the legislature and other political leaders such as the mayor of Chicago.
I didn't always necessarily agree with everything, and sometimes I was critical of what he did, but there was never an ideological debate that arose that forced me to sacrifice my ethics.
Ironically, when the public aid fraud case was going on, there were times that I thought, "I hope I'm getting the full story on this because I'm the one out there doing the talking." As a spokesperson, you're often making very forceful statements to refute statements made by various sides, and you have to trust that what's being told to you is the truth. Your credibility is on the line with reporters and it's not unusual to have some uneasy qualms when you're in this position. Later, when we were wrapping up the case, the Monica Lewinsky thing broke. I remember watching Mike McCurry, with whom I've spoken, and thinking: "I had some rough days, but it's nothing like that."
PRN: How has the news business, specifically the Chicago Tribune, changed through the years?
Hardy: Newspapers are changing significantly. I have a sense many have smaller news holes than they used to have. Therefore, I think there's more emphasis on writing style than reporting news in a hard or direct fashion. Newspapers have to compete with the Internet and broadcast media outlets and there is a constant struggle. That has forced fiscal efforts to hold down costs and a dependence on a more transient workforce. The result is the lessening of the institutional knowledge - and memory - base in the newsroom.
There is a constant turnover in the field, and there is no question that there are fewer reporters trying to do more stuff with less experience and fewer editors reading that copy. The ultimate downside is problems, i.e., the mistakes we saw slip through in Boston.
My advice to those in media relations? I would never say, "Don't trust reporters and don't tell them anything." I learned that not everyone in journalism can be trusted and not everyone has a really strong work ethic, but you can figure out an individual's work ethic so you don't have to make these universal statements or have those mandates. Your job isn't necessarily to make them write the story you want, but to help them get more texture for their piece, get more substance. If you work with them, they'll work with you.
Thomas Hardy can be reached at 312/494-4263.
Hardy's History
Born: Chicago
College: BA in English from Ripon College, Ripon, Wisc., 1974; MS in journalism from Northwestern University, 1977;
Favorite author: Thomas Hardy, author of "Far From The Maddening Crowd"
Career mentor: F. Richard Ciccone, former ME at the Chicago Tribune