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BART Cop Smashes Drunk Dude's Head Through Glass
by Tiffany Maleshefski
You'd think that an airport as large as SFO might know a thing or two about flight travel. Turns out, not so much. At least not according to Michael McCarron, SFO's beleaguered spokesperson who has never been one to embrace the press. In all of our years working with him, we've only managed to illicit pure hatred from his boyish face.
And today was no exception. As we trolled through the media relations page on the SFO website and discovered that McCarron is STILL working for the airport, we were in utter disbelief. This is a man who so clearly hates his job, we thought he'd at least have moved on by now.
Seems that McCarron doesn't hate his job per se, he just totally likes being, for lack of a better word, a dick. We thought SFO might be a good resource for a story we're working on what trends in the travel industry we can expect in 2009. Boy, were we wrong. The conversation was very short, but not so sweet.
SFist: "We were just wondering if you might be able to tell us what we can expect in 2009 in terms of travel. Will the industry thrive, will we see a reduction in air traffic, an increase, status quo?"
McCarron: "Well, what do you want? What are you asking?"
SFist: "We just want to know how many passengers are expected in 2009 to circulate through SFO."
McCarron: "Well I can't really tell you that. It's all based on the economy."
SFist: "So you haven't done any kind of forecasts or published any reports about flight travel in 2009."
McCarron: "No."
SFist: "OK, well if you don't think you can tell us anything about flight travel in the upcoming year, I guess we'll just find someone else who can."
McCarron: "OK." Click.
In this ever-changing world, it's good to know we can still count on SFO being as unhelpful as ever, and to Michael McCarron for keeping his hatred alive and well when it comes to press.
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somebody was rude to a member of the fourth estate! quick blog about it!
I'd be annoyed too if someone asked me questions like that. What exactly did you want from him, except some vague soundbitey thing about airplanes and the economy?
And if you hate him that much you can always fly out of Oakland ;)
I think the "I guess we'll just find someone else who can" is a little passive aggressive if you want to get information out of someone. I get that the guy was a dick, but the interviewer could push a little harder to get answers to the questions.
And coordinate with your other author who just posted the 'SFO PR rocks' story above ;)
So basically you didn't have any real questions for this guy, you just wanted sound bytes to flesh out an article that was too short?
Boo hoo.
It's true. I was totally passive aggressive on the phone. I guess I hold a grudge.
I actually did mean my initial question about the state of the airline industry to spark a larger discussion about the tourism in 2009 in San Francisco, but alas it didn't. And perhaps I should've just kept hammering away (in my experience, that's always just culled more anger, BUT how can I know if I didn't try!)
Thanks for everyone's feedback. Journalists are such a whiny bunch. We just need a swift kick every now and then put us back in our places!
I miss the other guy whose been representing the airport for years.
In my world, he wouldn't have a job either, but that's only because in my world, airports wouldn't have "media relations" at all, because they wouldn't waste money on crap other than, let's see, taking care of planes and travelers. In my world, someone else in society would have the job of assembling information and synthesizing into a form useful to the public.
But hey, in this world, we have the airport administrations we have, and we have the media we have.
Let's be fair-- someone with "spokesperson" in their job description should damned well be able and willing to take that first question and run with it.
^
exactly.
Maybe he is nice to real reporters?
I thought those jobs at the airport were six-figure gifts the mayor could use as rewards or to keep people quiet?
Let's be fair on the flip side - someone with reporter-slash-blogger in their job description should damned well be able and willing to make the first question worthy of his time and response.
Ya gotta know that being in this guy's position everyone is gunning for him and he's hugely busy. You fling a half-thought out question, essentially delegating your responsibilities and making him think for you, that's so entirely vague it just becomes a trap of gotchas. Multiply that by how many thousands of bloggers/reporters contact him on a monthly basis and, well, it's a pretty bleak picture. And to be fair, he did give you a second-take opportunity to ask a more solid question.
At the very least, he did take your phone call. He knows most of the people that contact him are going to talk shit about him no matter what he says so he just made sure the conversation was a short one. And you didn't fail him.
You have to take your shoes and belt off first...
Blogger: I'm calling to see if you have a story that might be interesting.
Spokesperson: I don't think so, do you have a specific question?
Blogger: Not really.
Spokesperson: Lame.
Blogger: Fuck you.
^
Brilliant.
Unfortunately, McCarron behaves this same way to pretty much all reporters. It's worthy of note that, in general, he's able to produce traveler projections for the coming year -- but this year he's not giving up the numbers. We can only guess whether that means they're not good.
@tiffanymSF
It might have been because he suspects you are carrying weed in your shoes.