Dead air?

Reader question:

When a meeting is described as “producing a lot of dead air”, what does it mean?

My comments:

It means there is a lot of silence during the meeting, that’s all.

Awkward silence, needless to say.

Dead, as in dead silent, dead air means silence on the radio. Ongoing radio programs are described as “on the air” because radio transmission does seem to arrive at the listener’s home via thin air. Anyways, dead air refers to a moment of inadvertent silence during a radio broadcast, due to a technical glitch or a loss for words by some speaker. When that happens, the listeners hears nothing, of course and if that happens a lot, you can imagine that the situation can become very awkward indeed.

Quite weird, even uncanny, as a matter of fact.

Likewise, in a meeting or conversation, the period or periods of time during which no one speaks can make everyone feel equally awkward and uncomfortable. Perhaps the participants don’t like each other or they disagree on everything or something. And the general atmosphere of the meeting is, as you can imagine, not lively at all.

So, in short, if a meeting or conversation produces “a lot of dead air”, it is not very productive. In other words, there’s no agreement. Everyone goes away empty handed and the meeting feels like a total waste of time, or something like that.

Alright, no more ado, let’s read more media examples of “dead air” to hammer the point firmly home:

1. Gwen Stefani has turned Blake Shelton a little bad.

The country star was addressed by an ex-fan on Twitter early Friday who wrote, “I ‘used to love you’ not so much anymore. I turn off the radio at work when any of ur songs come on.”

“Can’t stand u anymore,” she added, referencing his duo with Stefani titled “Used to Love You.”

Shelton wasn’t having any of the negativity and responded back to Lori Baker in just minutes.

“Oh no!!!! Now what will I do?!!!” he wrote. “Someone who doesn’t know me at all can’t stand me!!! How will I live?!!”

Baker kept fueling the fire by saying the singer changed — and not in a good way. And then Shelton started to really get defensive.

“I’m starting to realize that maybe you’re a little slow..? I’ll help you. If you don’t like me then why follow me?” he continued.

He ended the conversation following some dead air by saying, “Here’s the part where she’s blankly staring at her can of Pringles trying to figure it out herself.”

Eventually, Shelton blocked the user, but not after countless fans came to his defense telling Baker “for a grown woman you sure do sound like a 12 year old.”

- Blake Shelton takes the low road and trashes fan who isn’t happy with the ‘new him’ — ‘I'm starting to realize that maybe you're a little slow’, NYDailyNews.com, June 10, 2016.

2. There’s a “magic halo effect” that comes from being a media guest. Why? Because the fact that you were smart enough to get interviewed in the media means you must be “somebody.” You’re given enormous amounts of credibility just by association, because most people lack the courage to even approach journalists. Your ideal customer has likely never even dared to dream that they might someday be interviewed in the media. It seems too lofty. But there you are -- and you paid absolutely nothing for that one sentence that means so much, as opposed to $67,281.48 for that quarter-page WSJ ad that will be ignored by most.

One big media hit can change the rest of your life. I have lots of clients who are authors or speakers who will testify to this. If you’ve also got a strong, professional-looking website, some ancillary platform components (ebooks, YouTube channel, podcasts etc.) the media hit will be like the tide that raises all ships. When you get publicity, you get eyeballs plus credibility. Credibility equals trust, and people buy from people they trust.

Most people don’t realize this, but this is a symbiotic relationship. The really big surprise about using the media to build your platform? They need you just as much as you need them. I invite you to consider what it’s like from the journalist’s side of the desk.

Journalists have to fill an entire newspaper or broadcast every day with stuff that will intrigue and attract readers or listeners or viewers. Why? Because the more eyeballs the media attracts, the higher its advertising fees and therefore the higher its revenues.

Talk radio hosts have to get someone great on the air every moment they are live because if they don’t, they’ll end up with “dead air.” The producers and the hosts are always looking for great guests -- people they can interview who will entertain their core audience and attract more listeners. The guest may be controversial, right in alignment with the interests of the audience, or the philosophy of the host, but as long as the guests help make it a “good show,” the show will flourish. A radio station makes money in direct proportion to how many popular shows they air. This is the same for every newspaper, TV show and magazine that wants to stay in business.

So instead of asking, “Why should they feature me?” a better question is, “Why shouldn’t they feature me?” The only thing stopping you is your own doubts. All you’ll need is some chutzpah and a few great pitches. Once you get good at this, getting media will become easier for you every time you pitch.

The media is about telling stories. You can be the protagonist, whose individual story is universal, the story of us all.

- The Trick to Getting Publicity for Your Business, NewsTimes.com, November 30, 2016.

3. The leaders of tech were close-mouthed about their meeting with President-elect Donald Trump yesterday in New York, saying little about it, both before and after in public and online. Save for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos calling the confab "very productive" — the verbal equivalent of dead air — execs like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Apple CEO Tim Cook and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk did not comment about what was said in the room and most of the press reports afterward were very vague.

Thank goodness, you have Recode to tell you who said what in the room right after Trump did a decidedly odd little handshake with investor Peter Thiel — who rounded up the Silicon Valley potentates for him — talked about a stock market “bounce” and noted how smart those gathered were. (It was def a collection of smarties, all wearing their fancy clothes!)

After the press left and the doors were closed though, the visitors from the digital world actually did try to bring up a number of substantive major issues with Trump — although I may not have the order of topics quite right — and those gathered there. That included Trump’s three eldest kids being present, which most sources close to the execs (no, I am not saying which ones) thought was inappropriate on a number of levels.

“They took up three seats that should have gone to key tech people,” said one source, pointing to the odd absence of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Another source said that the conflict of interest seemed clear, while another just laughed and joked, “The U.S. is now a family business, I guess.”

- Who said what inside the Trump tech meeting: Immigration, paid maternity leave, the grid and becoming the ‘software president’, by Kara Swisher, CNBC.com, December 15, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.