Redfin on 60 Minutes: “It Could Have Been Much Worse”
As you may have heard by now, Redfin will be on 60 Minutes this weekend. In an online teaser, Lesley Stahl has compared the Internet to a shark in “Jaws,” set to devour the real estate industry.
The National Association of Realtors distributed to its 1.4 million members a memo about the piece with a vaguely military ring: “Operation Tip-Off Publicity Alert.” The first media talking point for members was that the segment, which no one outside of CBS has actually seen, “could have been much worse.”
The NAR boasted that it had managed to convince 60 Minutes that the Department of Justice lawsuit was too complex to explain to consumers; CBS, it said, was only able to publish a “highly abridged version” of the story it originally wanted to air.
This is one of those mind-boggling lies that brought to mind Paula Poundstone’s reaction when Hillary Clinton claimed she hadn’t thought about running for president. “It’s like one of those lies your teenage daughter tells you where you can only ask, ‘Why? Why?’”
60 Minutes is a television show whose ENTIRE PREMISE is based on the length of its segments. Its logo is A TICKING STOPWATCH. Every show runs three segments, and every segment runs 13 minutes.
Taping the show was fun.
The occasionally clueless Bahn Lee walked right up to Lesley Stahl holding a home-movie camera. The cameraman who powdered my nose said, “we never do this for the bad guys” (I later learned they do it for everybody). In awe-struck voices, members of the crew said “Lesley’s an animal” and “Lesley is hell on wheels.”
I agreed to be shot riding my bicycle into work, but still tried to look commanding in a blazer, scarf, helmet and cycling shoes. The producer got one gander of Allie Howard jabbing her finger into a table and said “that, I want that.” All the equipment blew our circuit breaker and, on one of our busiest days, the office went dark.
Then, when the lights went up, and three different cameramen called out their time-codes, and the sound guys crouched forward with their boom mikes, we froze up like idiots. Before Lesley Stahl had even climbed into the car that would take her back to the airport, we all wished that we had done much better.
Tune in Sunday night at 7 and tell us what you think!
(A bonus shark link from a friend of Redfin.)
