Madden Mischief

As the CEO of a PR firm endlessly booking clients on news programs, I’ve written an advisory on this subject before.  But that was a while ago, and regrettably I keep hearing guests on news shows too often ending interviews with that self-effacing phrase, “Thanks for having me.”  

It makes my skin crawl every time I hear it although I am sympathetic especially to one self-effacing concluder, American diplomat Bridget Ann Brink.

Take Brink’s appearance on CNN the other day.   After giving an intelligent assessment of prospects of Trump, Putin and Zelensky reaching an accord soon on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, she urged that Trump put more pressure on Putin as the aggressor.  Brink resigned her post as US ambassador to Ukraine in protest of our country’s not pressuring Putin enough to end the war Russia blatantly started and continues to ferociously wage mostly upon civilians and in the process killing thousands of innocent Ukrainian children. 

Now may be the ideal time for our heroic president to apply heavier pressure on Putin after America’s victory over fascism in Venezuela!

Trump’s riding high after the U.S. so bravely, boldly and brilliantly captured Maduro.  Perhaps our resourceful President should now be warning Putin to cease murdering defenseless families or who knows what might happen (to him). 

Yet, after concluding an articulate and thoughtful interview on CNN on what had caused her to resign, Brink ends it by saying, “Thanks for having me.”   I was also disappointed in her evading a question in an earlier TV interview about whether she had prepared Zelensky for that first disastrous meeting with Trump which exploded virally in the Oval Office.

But hearing once again that self-deprecating phrase, “Thanks for having me,” for me takes the obnoxious cake!   Ugh!  

Here’s an American diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025, a member of the United States Foreign Service, who previously served as the United States ambassador to Slovakia and has held various positions in the State Department since 1996, and speaks well and fluently about foreign affairs, here she is now using that expression sounding ever so grateful to a journalist for letting her in, out of the obscurity cold, for a respectfully warm TV interview.

“Thanks for having me” is like saying thanks for saving my professional life!  Thanks for rescuing me from aimlessly wondering in a jungle, from being invisible, ignored as a nobody, when she has much to offer.  If there’s anything that’s aimless, it’s the deadly drones Russia fires almost daily at thousands of innocent children in a country that has become its targeted victim now soaked in civilian blood, Ukraine.

Please, all media interviewees: before you leave for newsrooms, stick that expression way up in a closet somewhere, out of sight or hearing and leave it there.  Better yet, bury it!

Instead of sounding like you’ve just been rescued off some deserted island, when an interview ends and your host thanks you, say “You’re most welcome” or “My pleasure,” or just “Thank you,” but never, ever again do I want to hear “Thanks for having me,” especially after you’ve raised valid points who is the aggressor and who should be punished for three years ago invading Ukraine.

Please think of me and the exasperation and shock your causing me when I hear articulate, dutifully righteous and deserving guests conclude interviews saying “Thanks for having me” especially after I’ve just appreciated so much their interview, but mostly for the put down and embarrassment they’re causing themselves.  What it means is they’re so grateful to finally be rescued from nowhereville, from having been condemned to being a nobody with nothing to say that’s worthwhile enough for an interview. 

Yet, Brink is a champion standing up for the victims of a terrible aggressor in a senseless and brutal war. 

And reader, if you agree, and want to thank me for writing this, I’ll simply respond:

You’re welcome!

When Tom Madden gets a bug up his you know where, he just can’t stop chasing and beating it until it’s out, like certain expressions he finds imbecilic that drive him crazy. Other than that, he’s quite calm and rational and some say can even be “inspiring” when he writes his articles, books and blogs, while PR clients appreciate the media exposure his firm, TransMedia Group, has been generating for its clients for over 40 years.  Today, the firm is under the command of his dynamic daughter, Adrienne Mazzone, the president, while Madden is still CEO.