Brett Haber on Daniel Snyder

By Dan Steinberg



Now, I'm not a PR professional, nor am I a lawyer. I don't know exactly what makes a good PR move, or a good legal move, and what makes a bad PR move, or a bad legal move.

But this is why I'd tend to think that Dan Snyder dredging up a three-month old Washington City Paper story by filing a lawsuit against the paper was not the greatest of all PR moves: because the issue became the lead story of WUSA's Thursday evening broadcast, with the reporter mentioning how Snyder once sued fans, and banned signs from FedEx Field, and removed trees that blocked his view of the Potomac, complete with two anti-Snyder quotes from fans. Those weren't things that any media organization in this town were talking about last week at this time.

And if that wasn't enough, the second item from WUSA's Thursday night broadcast was a commentary from the station's sports director, Brett Haber. Now, I haven't been in this market forever, but my impression is that the local sports anchors have generally been a pretty sympathetic chorus for Redskins leadership. If this is sympathy, my name is Dan McKenna. Haber's commentary:



"In the past, Daniel Snyder has been brash, impatient and even capricious in his management of the Redskins, but that was his prerogative -- after all, it's his team. But the lawsuit against the Washington City Paper goes beyond that. It is a classic case of bullying, and a man stepping on the First Amendment rights of a legitimate news organization because he doesn't like what they say about him.



"Those who've reviewed Snyder's case find his claims of slander to be little more than trumped-up charges over a farcically written opinion piece. This isn't Russia. You don't get to stifle what the media says just because it paints you in a negative light.



"But even more repugnant is the fact that Snyder has threatened to use his wallet to intimidate the newspaper into backing down. In a letter to the newspaper's owners, Snyder's lawyer, David Donovan, said, "Mr. Snyder has more than sufficient means to protect his reputation....We presume that defending such litigation would not be a rational strategy for (you because)...the cost of litigation would quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper." In other words, you can't afford to defend this lawsuit, we're richer than you, so fire the author and give up. To their credit, the City Paper has no plans to do either.



"But most offensive of all is Snyder's reckless claim of anti-Semitism, saying that the newspaper's cover-art, showing Snyder with horns and a mustache, invokes longstanding anti-Jewish imagery. Well, speaking as a Jew, that's baloney. Moreover, it's an opportunistic and self-serving accusation that minimizes the real pain suffered by legitimately aggrieved Jews throughout the world. As the City Paper correctly points out, the cover suggests a child's scribblings across a photo of Snyder. It doesn't portray him ant-Semitically; it portrays him as a figurative devil, and that's legitimate. And oh, by the way, the cover artist and the editor who approved it are both Jewish.



"Snyder doesn't like the fact that people don't like him and say unflattering things about him. And he's discovering that, unlike other areas of his life and career, throwing money at the problem won't fix it. The truth that Snyder fails to grasp is that the only way to stop being portrayed as such an unlikable figure is to stop acting like one."

Now that's a strong commentary. And it's not coming from some two-bit blogger. With all due respect, it's not coming from an alt-weekly writer, either. It's coming from the sports director of one of D.C.'s four major television networks, which still have clout over a sizable demographic in this town. If I were a PR person or a lawyer, I would think that this is a situation maybe I'd rather have avoided. I guess that's why I'm just a blogger.

Anyhow, kudos to Haber on this one.