Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry so Stub. You
Speaker 1: should know. This is it? Well, that sounded like you're
Speaker 1: introducing the final episode my voice, this is it feels
Speaker 1: like it's the final episode. You won't be able to
Speaker 1: talk anymore. No, I'm getting there. That's not true. You
Speaker 1: don't know that. How's it going? It's going pretty well? Man.
Speaker 1: How about with you? I think both of us had
Speaker 1: a bit of a dark time researching this article. Why well,
Speaker 1: because and we're gonna get Well, we're gonna get flak.
Speaker 1: That's a teaser from publicists, because what I learned is
Speaker 1: that publicists are professional liars. I would say that depends
Speaker 1: on the circumstance. Well, what do you mean, Well, you're
Speaker 1: saying they're publicists who don't lie. No, I'm saying it
Speaker 1: depends on um whether the publicist is going to the
Speaker 1: media or the media is coming to the publicist, depending
Speaker 1: on the circumstance. What I am saying is, no matter
Speaker 1: what who you work for, if you're a publicist, then
Speaker 1: a percentage of your job will be lying depending on
Speaker 1: the circumstance. So so Billy Rays lie about something good.
Speaker 1: Billy ray Cyrus is like, I am going to donate
Speaker 1: a bunch of time and money to a local homeless shelter.
Speaker 1: You don't about that. The publicist gets on the horn
Speaker 1: starts letting everybody know, you guys should come cover this.
Speaker 1: Billy ray Cyrus goes and does that, and everything's good.
Speaker 1: Then on the way home, Billy ray Cyrus decides to
Speaker 1: celebrate by drinking a bucket of tequila and runs his
Speaker 1: car into a uh whatever. Okay. The publicist then starts
Speaker 1: getting calls and says he didn't drink a bucket of tequila.
Speaker 1: That wasn't even happen. That's overstated what really happened with this.
Speaker 1: So the circumstances depend on the the whether the publicist
Speaker 1: is or not. Oh yeah, I'm not saying that all
Speaker 1: publicists do is lie. But I'm saying if you work
Speaker 1: as a publicist, part of your job is to cover
Speaker 1: tracks and to lie um and you know that. Don't
Speaker 1: hate the publicists, hate the system, is what I say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're definitely a part of a larger system. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: larger system which includes all of us who digest news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially say like entertainment news, that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: there's like there's a whole there's two. From my understanding,
Speaker 1: there's two routes a person can take as a celebrity.
Speaker 1: You can either just go off and be a normal person,
Speaker 1: and depending on your level, you might have paparazzi following
Speaker 1: your that kind of stuff. There's once you get to
Speaker 1: a certain level, it doesn't matter what your decision is,
Speaker 1: or you can hire a publicist and feed yourself right
Speaker 1: into that machine to get as much publicity and as
Speaker 1: much pressed as you possibly can. Yeah. Well, I think
Speaker 1: any celebrity is going to have a publicist, but it's
Speaker 1: really a matter of your directive and your goal. I
Speaker 1: think some of those people like to be like that
Speaker 1: the old adage there's no such thing as bad publicity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I ran into that that that's more of a
Speaker 1: PR term, where like, so if you're in the PR,
Speaker 1: you're probably representing a company or an organization or something
Speaker 1: like that. A publicist is somebody who typically represents a
Speaker 1: single person, an artist and author, a musician, um, something
Speaker 1: like that. That's really the only definition I confined for
Speaker 1: a publicist, and the the job the goal of the
Speaker 1: publicist is to you, um, help maintain and promote the
Speaker 1: public image of that person that they represent. That's right,
Speaker 1: by um having a good relationship with the media, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the publicist. Uh. And by the way, that no,
Speaker 1: no such thing as bad publicity. I tried to find
Speaker 1: the origin of that, and the closest thing I could
Speaker 1: find was P. T. Barnum. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true. I don't think that's verified. We Twain, Yeah,
Speaker 1: PT Barnum or Mark Twain. Everybody says Mark Twain saying uh.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's even true anyway. I think
Speaker 1: maybe that used to be true, that it was a
Speaker 1: Mark Twain saying no, that no such thing is bad publicity.
Speaker 1: I think at one point that may have been sort
Speaker 1: of true. Yeah, these days there's clearly bad publicity. So
Speaker 1: you I said the word flak earlier as a teaser, apparently,
Speaker 1: um too. Flak or a flack is a term originating
Speaker 1: from Gene Flak, early movie publicist Hollywood, and that's right
Speaker 1: f l a K to take. Flak is named after
Speaker 1: a type of German gun in World War Two. A
Speaker 1: German anti aircraft gun. Two different things, but in this
Speaker 1: case it is a pejorative term for publicists. They don't
Speaker 1: like it. Pr flack Yeah, you shouldn't say that to
Speaker 1: someone that works in PR, or call them a liar.
Speaker 1: They don't like that either. Um yeah, I looked it up.
Speaker 1: Apparently it means that like, you can't be trusted, you'll
Speaker 1: you'll do anything for money. That's what a flackist. And
Speaker 1: then that's like they one article I read said that's
Speaker 1: like calling a personal injury attorney an ambulance chaser. Just
Speaker 1: not a nice term. So there you have it. Uh So,
Speaker 1: a publicist, like you said, works for their client to
Speaker 1: make them to get their good deeds out, and too
Speaker 1: if they don't have good deeds, to spend things to
Speaker 1: make it look like they do. You know, here, hold
Speaker 1: this baby lamp. Yeah, we take your picture exactly, and
Speaker 1: then they get photographed later eating euros down the block.
Speaker 1: The two events were totally not connected. No, So the
Speaker 1: what they do is they pitch ideas to the media
Speaker 1: and they probably have to be good writers themselves because
Speaker 1: the press release oftentimes is a starting point. But press releases,
Speaker 1: as we know, I can get lost in the shuffle
Speaker 1: and never see the light of day. Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like a huge wasted time. It can be, but uh,
Speaker 1: if you have a good publicist, um, they will be
Speaker 1: well connected to the media to ensure that that uh
Speaker 1: publicity blast is not lost, right exactly. So there's um,
Speaker 1: there's direction one, which is from the publicists to the media,
Speaker 1: and the publicist is going to have all these contacts
Speaker 1: with different entertainment reporters and business reporters and anybody that
Speaker 1: can possibly run the story. Yeah, anybody that could possibly
Speaker 1: run a story on um their client rights. And they'll say, um,
Speaker 1: Billy Ray is going to donate some money. He just
Speaker 1: seems like the type who would donate a bunch of
Speaker 1: money to a homeless shelter and go down there himself
Speaker 1: and help out. So Billy Ray is going to be
Speaker 1: down there. Plus it's it's it rolls off the tongue,
Speaker 1: Billy Ray. Um, So why don't you send one of
Speaker 1: your cover reporters down and and let's get some coverage
Speaker 1: for this. And since their friends, since these people have
Speaker 1: worked together for decades, now this reporter and this your
Speaker 1: your publicist. The reporter actually might respond and show up
Speaker 1: or the editor or the news producer, whoever the contact is.
Speaker 1: That's great, Like that's you hired a good publicist and
Speaker 1: now this story is going to make it out there
Speaker 1: because they didn't just write up a press release with
Speaker 1: a bunch of exclamation points in the headline and facts
Speaker 1: it to every media outlet they could find and get
Speaker 1: your response. Yes, so good. A publicist is only as
Speaker 1: good as their relationships, I think. Um. The other way
Speaker 1: on that street that you were talking about is from
Speaker 1: the journalists fact to the publicist. If they hear I
Speaker 1: heard Billy ray Cyrus drink a bucket of tequila and
Speaker 1: ran over a prostitute with his car, they will then
Speaker 1: get in touch with the publicist and then they go jack, buddy, Hey,
Speaker 1: we go back a long way. What I lie to you?
Speaker 1: What I lie to you? Uh So that's how that goes,
Speaker 1: and they want they will be more forthcoming with people
Speaker 1: who have it's a scratch your back, you scratch my
Speaker 1: type of scenario. Yeah, like that reporter that actually showed
Speaker 1: up at the homeless shelter and covered it and made
Speaker 1: a nice piece and everything. I'll give you the scoop.
Speaker 1: When that guy calls, he's he's going to get the
Speaker 1: better treatment from the publicist than somebody who ignored the
Speaker 1: pitch before. That's right, um scratching a lot of back
Speaker 1: scratchings in the machine. I've seen a lot more women
Speaker 1: as bblicists and men, and I've always wonder why that
Speaker 1: it's true. I don't know that that is true. In
Speaker 1: researching this, I saw about an equal amount. I used
Speaker 1: to think that as well, Um, but it seems like
Speaker 1: there's an equal amount these days. It seems like every
Speaker 1: publicist I've ever known has been a woman. And I
Speaker 1: just figured just because women maybe more level headed and
Speaker 1: uh more able to like smooth out a situation has
Speaker 1: some big dumb guy. Um, but I guess the guys
Speaker 1: who were publicists aren't big dumb guys like me. I'd
Speaker 1: be a bad publicist. Oh yeah, So what would your
Speaker 1: response to be if somebody called to find out what
Speaker 1: stupid thing you're your client did or why they did
Speaker 1: some stupid thing. I'd say, you know, what's really none
Speaker 1: none of your business, bad publicist. Yeah well that was
Speaker 1: something I ran across, as you know, saying something like
Speaker 1: my client needs to privacy respected right now, we just
Speaker 1: immediately shut down a relationship that you've cultivated over the years.
Speaker 1: Do you have to give as a publicist you are
Speaker 1: like you, there has to be something that you give,
Speaker 1: so you better have something that will play kate the reporter,
Speaker 1: but while also is probably not the truth, because that
Speaker 1: reporter will go off and write the truth about your client,
Speaker 1: and your client will have just gotten horrible publicity because
Speaker 1: of you. It's a balancing act. Yeah, or they'll just
Speaker 1: say let me send you get back from pet Segal.
Speaker 1: You like the last one, right, Uh. But publicist may
Speaker 1: also and it depends people that have a staff of
Speaker 1: people working for them. Sometimes the lines are blurred on
Speaker 1: who does what. But a publicist can arrange uh interview
Speaker 1: requests and set all that stuff up. If you have
Speaker 1: like a book tour, or your politician or your band
Speaker 1: with a new album coming out, they might arrange all
Speaker 1: those interviews, in which case they are prepping two things.
Speaker 1: They are prepping the interviewer saying you can't ask about
Speaker 1: the bucket of tequila. If you want this interview, i'll
Speaker 1: give it to you, but this is off limits all
Speaker 1: these things. And then, as we've learned when we've had
Speaker 1: people work with us in publicity, they'll be prepping you
Speaker 1: um on as the interviewee, like if they asked this,
Speaker 1: this is how you should probably deal with it. Don't
Speaker 1: answer that. Yeah, it's back to what you were And uh,
Speaker 1: my favorite thing ever our videos where celebrities walk out
Speaker 1: of interviews because the interviewer has asked something they weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to ask. Those are great. Yeah, not to sit
Speaker 1: around watch those all day. Yeah, you can probably find
Speaker 1: a pretty good super cut of them. Yeah probably. So
Speaker 1: all right, Well let's take a break and uh when
Speaker 1: we come back, we will talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the skills you need as a publicist. All right, We've
Speaker 1: mentioned lying and you know, I joke, but for real,
Speaker 1: if you want to be a publicist, you better have
Speaker 1: a certain comfort level with with stretching the truth and lying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna have to do that. If you're not
Speaker 1: comfortable with that, you shouldn't go into that line of work.
Speaker 1: Is that safe to say? I think very. You need
Speaker 1: to be good with people and cultivate those relationships. You
Speaker 1: need to be a good writer. Well, not only do
Speaker 1: you have to be a good writer, you have to
Speaker 1: be a good journalist. And a lot of UM publicists
Speaker 1: have a background in journalism because I kept running into
Speaker 1: this in this article and another article you sent. The
Speaker 1: number one rule of being a publicist is to think
Speaker 1: like a journalist. Even better than that is to not
Speaker 1: only think like a journalist, but be able to write
Speaker 1: like a journalist too, because as we kind of demonstrated
Speaker 1: that the publicist media relationship is a two way street.
Speaker 1: The publicist needs the media to publicize and of adding
Speaker 1: manner their client, But the media needs a publicist because
Speaker 1: they've got deadlines and they need to come up with
Speaker 1: story ideas. And if something is brought to them, that's great.
Speaker 1: But that that media professional has a reputation to protect.
Speaker 1: It can't be like, you know, Billy ray Cyrus got
Speaker 1: off of his couch and mail to check for five
Speaker 1: dollars to a local homeless shelter. Yeah, and they came
Speaker 1: in a pressure release in a fax machine. That reporter
Speaker 1: is not going to have a very good reputation. But
Speaker 1: if a publicist comes to this reporter with a great headline,
Speaker 1: creative pitch a good story that's tailored to that reporter
Speaker 1: and they're beat and even more than that, tailored to
Speaker 1: that reporters audience, there's a good likelihood that reporter will say,
Speaker 1: I'm listening and that's just music to a publicist years sure,
Speaker 1: just to be listened to. Yeah, that's when you throw
Speaker 1: it into fifth year. Uh. You can't be afraid of rejection. UM,
Speaker 1: you've got to be outgoing and you've got to take
Speaker 1: your licks because a lot of your attempts are going
Speaker 1: to fail just by nature of the job. So you
Speaker 1: can't get your feelings all hurt. Yeah, you guess you could,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to show that because then the
Speaker 1: journalists would be like, jeez, Chuck, such a baby. You're
Speaker 1: going to be eating a lot. I didn't run the
Speaker 1: story and he's complaining I saw him choking up in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. While they may get a good laugh out
Speaker 1: of that, probably won't want to work with you as much. UM.
Speaker 1: You gotta be very patient and you have to be
Speaker 1: very flexible because if you're working for celebrities, it is
Speaker 1: a very tough job. That's another thing too, So you
Speaker 1: are Um, your hours are basically all hours whenever you're needed. Right.
Speaker 1: So not only does your publicists frequently also have to
Speaker 1: do other stuff or people associated with the publicist UM
Speaker 1: have to do things like pick up things for the
Speaker 1: the client, like um. In addition to that, like the
Speaker 1: higher up you go on the food chain, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute. UM, the more that that
Speaker 1: client feels a okay with emailing you at three in
Speaker 1: the morning saying like, UM, I need to be reassured
Speaker 1: about my celebrity status or whatever, um, and the publicist
Speaker 1: needs to respond, you're basically on call all the time. Also,
Speaker 1: at three in the morning, your client may have done
Speaker 1: something really horrifically stupid and some paparazzi caught it and
Speaker 1: now words starting to spread and you're fielding calls from
Speaker 1: reporters at three in the morning to get a statement
Speaker 1: on what your client did. Yeah. I mean when when
Speaker 1: Twitter came out, I remember thinking at the time, like
Speaker 1: publicists aren't gonna be around anymore because people are doing
Speaker 1: this themselves. Well, they've actually figured out ways to use Twitter,
Speaker 1: benefit ways to use Twitter. But Twitter is also their
Speaker 1: biggest security blanket as well, because because of Twitter, more
Speaker 1: and more celebrities are saying really stupid things at the
Speaker 1: publicist is then going to have to cover their tracks,
Speaker 1: so they'll take down the tweet and then try and
Speaker 1: spend that or just you know, the apology is always
Speaker 1: very funny to me awkward. Well, it's never like, did
Speaker 1: you hear about Chris Carter, the NFL guy, he's a
Speaker 1: former NFL player wide receiver. Yeah, he um is in
Speaker 1: hot water this week because he spoke. Was hired by
Speaker 1: the NFL to come in and speak to the rookies.
Speaker 1: They often do that for guys that had been in trouble,
Speaker 1: to come in and say, don't do what I did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of and um he said in his talk to
Speaker 1: the Rookie Symposium said something about, you know, if you
Speaker 1: get caught with you know, da da da da da,
Speaker 1: he just make sure you have a fall guy on
Speaker 1: your team, like the guy in the car that's like,
Speaker 1: it's my weed. And he got in big trouble for that.
Speaker 1: And his apology. His apology was was like that that's
Speaker 1: not the kind of advice I would ever give young people.
Speaker 1: It's like, but that's the advice you exactly gave young people, Like,
Speaker 1: how can you say that days later? It's just so obvious.
Speaker 1: It's a forced, insincere apology. So we either had a
Speaker 1: bad publicist didn't listen to his publicist, because part of
Speaker 1: the publicist job is when you're going to make the statement,
Speaker 1: the public statement, the public apology, or whatever, the reasoning
Speaker 1: behind it, the rationale, the um, the wording of it,
Speaker 1: just the logic behind the apology is probably going to
Speaker 1: be crafted by your publicists. At least help they're going
Speaker 1: to help you with it. At the very least, they're
Speaker 1: going to want to help you with it, right because
Speaker 1: they're probably scared stupid that you're going to make it worse. Right,
Speaker 1: And it sounds like there's a lot of crisis management
Speaker 1: and that is a part of it, But publicists also
Speaker 1: are just trying to cook up opportunities. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that that's way more the day to day. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, depending on the client, of course. Um but
Speaker 1: I remember our former boss Connell was in a band
Speaker 1: years ago and I read online somewhere that his band
Speaker 1: was I went to Elton John's do you remember this story?
Speaker 1: Went to Elton John's house and spelled out their band
Speaker 1: name and fire on his tennis court. I hadn't to
Speaker 1: try and get on his label or something. That's a
Speaker 1: great way to do it, I know, And I went
Speaker 1: and asked it. I was like, dude, I can't believe
Speaker 1: you guys did that. And he went we didn't do that.
Speaker 1: I was like no, and he was like no, these
Speaker 1: our publicists made that up. It's like nothing true about it.
Speaker 1: And he's like no, they completely fabricated that story as
Speaker 1: a publicity stunt that never happened. Uh. Yeah, So why
Speaker 1: even go to the trouble of it where you can
Speaker 1: just release a story that says that you did that
Speaker 1: you hadn't that amazing when something like that could so
Speaker 1: easily be fact check, like by calling Elton John Well,
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. Like, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious. I wonder how many media stories are
Speaker 1: just totally fabricated matter of fact. You out there in
Speaker 1: podcast land, let us know if you know a media
Speaker 1: story that was just totally fabricated that everybody takes his fact.
Speaker 1: We want to hear it. I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I do too. Alright. We mentioned earlier that you might
Speaker 1: end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning as a publicist,
Speaker 1: if you're the publicist intern. Yeah, that's probably what's going
Speaker 1: to happen, is you might get asked to go get
Speaker 1: the laundry and then you will say, sure, I'll take
Speaker 1: care of that for you, and then you will go
Speaker 1: down the chain until you find the underling who was
Speaker 1: trying to be a publicist who still does things like that. Right,
Speaker 1: this person may or may not be in college, but
Speaker 1: it's probably college age. That's something that I ran across.
Speaker 1: If you want a career in as a publicist, you
Speaker 1: do not need to spend a single penny on higher education.
Speaker 1: The entire career of publicists begins as as a hands
Speaker 1: on experience. You need to be in. You need to
Speaker 1: be literate, You need to prob have a knack for
Speaker 1: writing um in a journalistic way and crafting good headlines
Speaker 1: and by proxy good email subject lines. But you don't
Speaker 1: If you have that already before college, you don't need
Speaker 1: to go to college. No, Like you can go in
Speaker 1: major in journalism or communications or PR. But it's not
Speaker 1: like you get that diploma, that PR diploma, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get like some entry level job as a publicist
Speaker 1: and you're still gonna have to work your way out.
Speaker 1: See it says right here, I have a PR degree,
Speaker 1: So where's my job? My advice is to skip college
Speaker 1: and go straight into the workforce as early as you can.
Speaker 1: If this is what you want to do, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel and I hope that there is becoming a
Speaker 1: bigger understanding that there are certain fields out there. There
Speaker 1: are careers out there where you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to college, and there are careers out there where, like
Speaker 1: you should go to a vocational school to learn that trade.
Speaker 1: That college is not necessarily this end all be all,
Speaker 1: that you have to spend money after money after money
Speaker 1: to get a degree that might even not be used
Speaker 1: in your field. But I mean that it needed a
Speaker 1: degree to do what I'm doing. No one ever has
Speaker 1: to see it, all right, And this is a this
Speaker 1: is a perfect example of that, Chuck, Like, to be
Speaker 1: a publicist, you do not need a degree. You need
Speaker 1: hands on experience. You need basically what amounts to an apprenticeship.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, a good way to say it. So
Speaker 1: go in and get that job in the mail room
Speaker 1: or as an assistant or as an intern. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it would be great if you still live at your
Speaker 1: parents house at this point, because you're going to get
Speaker 1: paid like next to nothing and you're going to be
Speaker 1: doing all the grunt work. But if you are, if
Speaker 1: you go in there with your mindset to I'm going
Speaker 1: to learn this. I want to learn this and move up.
Speaker 1: You're you're going to be in the right environment for
Speaker 1: that absolutely. Uh. Like we said, you might be picking
Speaker 1: up dry cleaning. You're going to be returning a lot
Speaker 1: of phone calls, drafting a lot of um, probably not
Speaker 1: so fun uh press releases that that is graduated from
Speaker 1: the intern. Yeah. Well, I'm talking about being like a
Speaker 1: junior assistant right after you get hired on. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and press releases that aren't like the sexy ones. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be writing like the press releases for
Speaker 1: Billy Ray Cyrus in other words, No, those are sexy.
Speaker 1: You'll be writing them for his dog, Okay, you know sure,
Speaker 1: Freddie Freddie Cyrus, Freddie Freddie Cyrus. Okay. You are going
Speaker 1: to be handling your publicists that you work for, their schedule, um,
Speaker 1: their contacts. You're going to be putting together press skots
Speaker 1: and epks electronic press skitts and blasting those out. Basically
Speaker 1: all of the um nuts and bolts of the job
Speaker 1: you're going to be doing as a junior uh staff
Speaker 1: publicist or an assistant. Not a bad gig if that's
Speaker 1: what you want to do and if you stick to
Speaker 1: it and you're good at it, you're gonna end up
Speaker 1: being a publicist. Not only are you getting the experience
Speaker 1: you need on the job, you're also in a place
Speaker 1: where your networking too, because that is probably tied for
Speaker 1: first as far as like thinking like a journalist goes.
Speaker 1: You need to be a pretty good networker. That's right,
Speaker 1: And you know what, let's take a break and we
Speaker 1: will talk more about networking and some of the skills
Speaker 1: you still need. Cho Can I make a confession, I'm
Speaker 1: possibly the worst networker on the planet. Uh, you didn't
Speaker 1: have to tell me that I'm really bad at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not your back, It isn't. Some people are good
Speaker 1: at networking, pretty good at You're good at networking because
Speaker 1: I enjoy it, and I don't consider it um networking
Speaker 1: sounds like just doing something to serve you in the end.
Speaker 1: I don't look at it that way. I look at
Speaker 1: it like I enjoy making professional colleague, enjoy meeting and
Speaker 1: getting to know professional colleagues, and then later on if
Speaker 1: I can hit them up for something or if they
Speaker 1: hit me up, that's great, But if not, it's just
Speaker 1: something like you know, so, so the response to somebody
Speaker 1: when they come and ask you for something you're like,
Speaker 1: oh I saw this coming. That's not the way to respond.
Speaker 1: Probably not. I'm trying to put myself out there a
Speaker 1: little more. Oh yeah, yeah, Why is that just just?
Speaker 1: I think that's a skill that everybody should have instead
Speaker 1: of being like a misanthropic recluse, you know, put yourself
Speaker 1: out there. I agree. Um, well, one of the skills
Speaker 1: that I don't think we pinpointed was networking without seeming
Speaker 1: like your networking, which is sort of the key what
Speaker 1: I was just talking about. And I think maybe that
Speaker 1: is it too, Like I feel like networking is a task.
Speaker 1: Is if I just relaxed and enjoyed it and like
Speaker 1: just you know, communing with a fellow human being, isn't
Speaker 1: that what it's all about? It's all it is like that,
Speaker 1: then I'm sure it would be much more relaxing. Um.
Speaker 1: I read a blog and I sent it to you,
Speaker 1: and I want to shout them out because they sonic
Speaker 1: bids S O N I C B I D S.
Speaker 1: It's a blog where they did an interview that was
Speaker 1: pretty insightful. Actually, they did a double interview, a dual
Speaker 1: interview with Julie Lichtenstein, a thirty seven Media and Lily
Speaker 1: Golightly of Golightly Media, And I think they worked with
Speaker 1: bands and musical artists mainly, but it was super insightful
Speaker 1: and they said, Um, just some little tidbits here, Like
Speaker 1: I was always curious how they get paid, um, And
Speaker 1: I think if you're a publicist for a person and
Speaker 1: like you were on retainer, then you just get a
Speaker 1: salary um, or if you're part of a firm that
Speaker 1: just works for that person. But you can also just
Speaker 1: be hired for a campaign. Right, So if you're a
Speaker 1: band and you have gone to the trouble of like
Speaker 1: going in and hiring a producer to produce your album,
Speaker 1: and like you've made a studio quality album that you're
Speaker 1: proud of, you might want to hit everybody up or
Speaker 1: gather around another two grand to hire a publicist for
Speaker 1: a month to release that album correctly. And like just
Speaker 1: hiring a publicist isn't going to automatically make it great.
Speaker 1: Like you need to say, can we see some of
Speaker 1: the other campaigns you've run? What are your ideas for
Speaker 1: this campaign? Um? Who have some of your clients been
Speaker 1: in the past? Um? What are what are what's some
Speaker 1: of the press that you've gotten. Yeah, you don't want
Speaker 1: to just be like throw a dart at a phone book,
Speaker 1: do your research because it's too grand and you're an
Speaker 1: upcoming band and that's just that's not chump change. But
Speaker 1: if you if you look at it as a wise investment,
Speaker 1: and you do invest in wisely and a good publicist,
Speaker 1: it could make a huge difference for you. Agreed. Um.
Speaker 1: This Julie said that, Uh, they try and get out
Speaker 1: for for a major artist, three or four months ahead
Speaker 1: of the release of the album is when they want
Speaker 1: to start their job. So it's not like, hey, it
Speaker 1: drops next week, let's think of some good ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: they want some good lead time. Uh. And they said
Speaker 1: that they like to work around goals. Um, if they're
Speaker 1: if it's like a tour, like for us going on
Speaker 1: our tour, we don't have a publicist, but we have
Speaker 1: promoters working with venues that sort of do the job
Speaker 1: of a publicist as far as trying to sell tickets. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you are booking a tour and you have
Speaker 1: a publicist, they're going to be the ones that are
Speaker 1: getting you on the local radio stations, morning TV, getting
Speaker 1: you in the local newspaper or alternative newspaper to get
Speaker 1: you some pressed. And this is I mean if you
Speaker 1: have um, like, this is stuff you can do yourself.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that you are hiring when
Speaker 1: you hire a publicists their contexts, Like you don't have
Speaker 1: the context, you're just the band. One of the problems
Speaker 1: is that you are it's going to be tough for
Speaker 1: you to think objectively, like you're not gonna understand why
Speaker 1: every journalist you talked to doesn't want to automatically do
Speaker 1: a long form piece on how great your band is.
Speaker 1: Publicists is going to be dispassionate enough and removed enough
Speaker 1: that they can see it objectively through a journalists size
Speaker 1: and then pitch it in a way that's probably going
Speaker 1: to get better, um more more bites. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good way to put it. Because the artists we've even
Speaker 1: experienced this is the ones who gets their feelings or
Speaker 1: saying like, oh man, that you know they interviewed us
Speaker 1: last time, why did they do it this time? And
Speaker 1: they're always great about massaging the ego a little bit,
Speaker 1: saying like it's okay, guys, there's no big deal, because um,
Speaker 1: that doesn't do much for anyway. Lie, right, we got
Speaker 1: this other thing that's better lie right. Um. The other
Speaker 1: thing they're gonna be doing if they work for you,
Speaker 1: is are gonna be sending you, uh weekly or bi
Speaker 1: weekly reports on what's lined up, who passed on stuff,
Speaker 1: who who bit um stuff like that, Like they're keeping
Speaker 1: you informed. You're not just like in a black hole.
Speaker 1: And some artists like to be well in touch on
Speaker 1: that stuff. And some probably don't care about being bothered.
Speaker 1: They just want to be on Man. Conan shot in
Speaker 1: Atlanta fifteen minutes from our house where we live, and
Speaker 1: we couldn't get on Conan and it was while our
Speaker 1: TV show is debuting. You don't have to remind me.
Speaker 1: Let's talk Penny C. Santi Vieri, Yeah, from HuffPo. She
Speaker 1: is the author and CEO of Marketing Experts, Inc. And
Speaker 1: she listed out nine things that a good publicist does.
Speaker 1: What's number one? Chuck? Can you guess? I think like
Speaker 1: a journalist? That's right. You already said that and you
Speaker 1: were right. It's the number one rule. Number two rules,
Speaker 1: know the rules, right, You gotta play within the game
Speaker 1: if you start and you can bend rules, but if
Speaker 1: you start breaking them, people have a long memory. Well here, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you go on and read. Um, just type the
Speaker 1: phrase rules of pitching and publicity into your favorite search
Speaker 1: engine and it will bring up Apparently one of the
Speaker 1: journalist things journalists like to do in their downtime is
Speaker 1: right lengthy blog post mocking pr and publicists don't follow
Speaker 1: the rules of pitching. So, um, one of the rules
Speaker 1: is no phone calls. You just don't use the phone email. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially if you're cold calling people like I guess if
Speaker 1: you have a relationship with somebody, you can pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and column, but you you don't send an
Speaker 1: email blast and then a day later follow up on
Speaker 1: the email by phone. Apparently that's the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can do. Yeah, you don't want to bug people, know,
Speaker 1: and it's very easy to come off as like pestering
Speaker 1: a reporter as publicist. So you need to know the rules,
Speaker 1: or your publicist needs to know the rules. Here's a
Speaker 1: good one that I didn't think about reading outside of
Speaker 1: your market. I'm sure it's pretty easy to just think
Speaker 1: New York in l A, Like, what else do I
Speaker 1: need to know about? Well, not even that. It's like, um,
Speaker 1: if you're a band outside of your industry, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and just start to think of like, oh, well, we
Speaker 1: actually sing this song about the oil industry and oil
Speaker 1: prices are going through the roofs, so maybe maybe the
Speaker 1: Today Show would want to talk to us about our songs.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. I'd be a great publicist.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible at networking. UM, Google alerts. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a no brainer. I would think. UM, understanding the importance
Speaker 1: of local met the that's a good one because while
Speaker 1: your artist is not gonna be super stoked about appearing
Speaker 1: on Good Morning Toledo, Hey, if there's a tie like
Speaker 1: you're from Toledo, like you, then that's probably a smart
Speaker 1: thing to do because the local media loves people that
Speaker 1: were from there that moved away. Plus, UM, Mrs sance
Speaker 1: Cvari makes this point or miss santy Viry sorry, um
Speaker 1: makes this point that, Um, you never know where a
Speaker 1: local contact is going to end up. Sure might hit
Speaker 1: the big time. They might work for USA Today in
Speaker 1: a couple of months. Yeah, it doesn't get bigger than that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if they if they hit the big time on
Speaker 1: their end and they have you as like a contact,
Speaker 1: it could help you out big time. That's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then earlier you mentioned something about subject lines for emails.
Speaker 1: I never really thought about this, but um, Penny says,
Speaker 1: can I call her Penny? You can't in the first
Speaker 1: name basis I call her miss san Sivilleri. Okay, what's
Speaker 1: She says that crafting a subject line is one of
Speaker 1: the most important things that you can do as a publicist,
Speaker 1: and that they agonize over this, and it makes total
Speaker 1: sense with the glut of emails that people receive, especially journalists. Uh,
Speaker 1: you want to grab their attention otherwise it's just going
Speaker 1: to be by bye time. So but you also have
Speaker 1: to redrafting, editing, tweaking, she says. It's just like maddening
Speaker 1: how much you have to do that. Yeah, that would
Speaker 1: drive me crazy. Yeah, because it's the minutia. So much
Speaker 1: importance on the minutiae. But it's true, and you have
Speaker 1: to you have to put a lot of thought into it.
Speaker 1: But you also probably can't come off as having put
Speaker 1: too much thought into where else it seems desperate, which
Speaker 1: she'll turn somebody off. Publicists want to kill journalists and
Speaker 1: vice versa. Yeah, it sounds like a weird relationship for sure,
Speaker 1: you know, and then also, did you look up media leads?
Speaker 1: So basically there's services out there where journalists say I
Speaker 1: need a quote on I'm doing a piece on nuclear fusion,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know what that is. So the
Speaker 1: source and then this this this UM service that the
Speaker 1: journalist calls puts out like a daily year's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even more than once a day newsletter blasts to
Speaker 1: PR people who pay for the service, and then they
Speaker 1: go through and say, oh, I've actually got a nuclear
Speaker 1: physicist on my payroll, and I'm I'm going to connect him.
Speaker 1: We've been connected that way before, huh, when we had
Speaker 1: different PR firms working for worth US at times UM
Speaker 1: they've gotten in touch and say it said so and
Speaker 1: so at SpaceX UM wants to know if you want
Speaker 1: to come on and talk about this or when we
Speaker 1: did that stuff on ABC about when the housing crisis hit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we're financial experts. Yeah, so stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it used to come across our desk every
Speaker 1: now and then. Well, there's there's subscription services that connect
Speaker 1: people through leads. From what I'm seeing is Twitter is
Speaker 1: now I'm filling that void a lot where you can
Speaker 1: just search Twitter for the hashtag h A r oh,
Speaker 1: help a reporter out the reporters um. And then also
Speaker 1: I guess there's a lot of PR tastemakers out there
Speaker 1: um that are just super connected and will basically tweet
Speaker 1: a lead and you don't have to pay a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a more for that subscription service. You just follow
Speaker 1: certain people on Twitter, and as a PR person, you
Speaker 1: might have somebody that's a client that you connect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole that whole new job of being an aggregator
Speaker 1: a curator like that. Yeah, like people do that and
Speaker 1: that's all they do. But we also live in an
Speaker 1: age where people are famous for being famous. Man, I
Speaker 1: need to take back a little bit about my tirade
Speaker 1: about liars. I think that what I'm talking about our
Speaker 1: people publicists for like big celebrities and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like we've had publicists work with us and at that
Speaker 1: of the clients that they work with are like people
Speaker 1: like us, where you don't have to like lie and spend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're always on our best behavior. Yeah, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: regular stuff like let me find a good opportunity for
Speaker 1: you and connect to you. And so it's I was overstating,
Speaker 1: and I think that's just the far edge of the
Speaker 1: celebrity end of things, because I just got to thinking
Speaker 1: about what if they're listening. I don't want them to
Speaker 1: think I didn't think they were doing a good job.
Speaker 1: He did a great job. We'll wait to back off
Speaker 1: of that one, Chuck. I got one more little thing
Speaker 1: on Jim Moron Moran. You just said moron m O
Speaker 1: R A N. I think Moran not the way the
Speaker 1: friends say moron. Uh. He is was known as the
Speaker 1: master of the publicity stunt back in the day. Like
Speaker 1: he did things. What his big thing was was to
Speaker 1: take a saying and try and disprove it, like for
Speaker 1: a company. So he literally went to Alaska on behalf
Speaker 1: of g E to sell a refrigerator to Uh, well
Speaker 1: it says an s come out. But I guess in
Speaker 1: any wits what you would say today. Um, he walked
Speaker 1: a bull through a china shop in New York City
Speaker 1: is a stunt. I think they broke some things. He
Speaker 1: got on a horse for a politician and changed directions
Speaker 1: midstream on the horse like rode it through a river
Speaker 1: and change directions like you can't do this. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then in nine nine for the Premier of the Mouse
Speaker 1: That Roared the Great Peter Seller's movie he opened an embassy.
Speaker 1: Remember the movie was about a small country that declared
Speaker 1: war in a big country because they wanted to declare
Speaker 1: war in the US and then surrender and then get
Speaker 1: financially from around the world because their economy was but
Speaker 1: they ended up winning or something. I don't he opened
Speaker 1: an embassy in Washington for a mythical country. Yeah. Speaking
Speaker 1: of By the way, I finally saw a Doctor Strangelove. Oh,
Speaker 1: really great movie, one of the best. It's up there
Speaker 1: for sure, one of the best satires. Let's say it
Speaker 1: is a great movie. Great movie. And Peter Seller's man
Speaker 1: just he did great. But also I mean, like George C.
Speaker 1: Scott was amazing, and he was amazing. And the guy
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name that played the colonel or whatever,
Speaker 1: the one who lost his marvels. Yea, yeah he was.
Speaker 1: He was so good. Everybody was slim Slim Chills or
Speaker 1: slim Pickins, Slim Pickins Chills. Yeah, there's Chili. Chill Wills
Speaker 1: was another like what country Western actor, Chill Wills, I
Speaker 1: think is his name, Chill Wills. You'd recognize him if
Speaker 1: you saw his face, Okay, Chill Wills, All right, of course,
Speaker 1: Chill Wills makes an appearance and How Publicist Works episode No,
Speaker 1: I got nothing else, Thank goodness. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about publicists, you can take this word in
Speaker 1: the search part how stuff Works dot com? And I
Speaker 1: said search parts was time for listening to mail Did
Speaker 1: have one more thing? What was that movie America's Sweethearts?
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that? With John cusack Down? You
Speaker 1: know Billy Crystal was played a publicist a pain in
Speaker 1: the butt Hollywood couple. Oh, best, best portrayal of a
Speaker 1: publicist is on Seinfeld. The mom from that seventies show Members.
Speaker 1: She played Seinfeld's publicist. Oh she was. Yeah, she tried
Speaker 1: to get the airline pilot kicked out of Jerry's show
Speaker 1: and he ended up getting I think it's the one
Speaker 1: where Kramer's at JFK or LaGuardia. He's making bets on
Speaker 1: arrivals and he ends up using the son of Sam
Speaker 1: mail Bag as collateral. Right, great episode, but the mom
Speaker 1: from that seventies show played Jerry's publicist. Yeah, who was
Speaker 1: also on Friends? What was she friends? She played Phoebe's
Speaker 1: half brother. Giovanni Ribisi played his girlfriend or wife, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a weird like a mismatch couples, and I
Speaker 1: think they were. They got her to be a surrogate
Speaker 1: for them. Okay, when Lisa Kudro got pregnant realized, I
Speaker 1: think it's how he handled it. We have watched a
Speaker 1: lot of all right, I'm gonna call this one. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: We were actually right, and this lady was nice at
Speaker 1: the dinner party. How's that perspic luve? Okay, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: have a little story. I was at a small dinner
Speaker 1: party where the host was making his own sea salt.
Speaker 1: The topic about It's one of those dinner parties. The
Speaker 1: topic of kosher salt came up, so I dropped the
Speaker 1: fact from Your Salt episode that Kasher salt is actually
Speaker 1: just salt used for drawing blood out of meat to
Speaker 1: make a kosher not salt blessed by a rabbi, and
Speaker 1: the fellow guest disagreed, which I responded, I'm quite true
Speaker 1: about this. The host then said, raise your hand if
Speaker 1: you're Jewish, and the guy that disputed me raised his
Speaker 1: hand felt rather embarrassed while he explained to me what
Speaker 1: kosher means and that salt also goes through the same
Speaker 1: kosher process that would ever explained how I backed down
Speaker 1: and didn't try to defend the fact that I just
Speaker 1: told It's not that I doubted you guys, though I
Speaker 1: jokingly said I'd write any mail to complain, but it's
Speaker 1: because appeal is disrespectful to correct someone on their own heritage.
Speaker 1: Good move. I also didn't want to start any petty
Speaker 1: debate with someone at someone else's dinner party, also a
Speaker 1: good move, so I decided to take in the embarrassment
Speaker 1: while he was explaining what pocher is at the same
Speaker 1: time eating a splite of pasta with Rizo. I hope
Speaker 1: you find this amusing. Please keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: If you read on the show, please give a shout
Speaker 1: out to my friend Amber, who introduced me to the show.
Speaker 1: And that is from Chloe uh to say. So, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, Chuck, were we right and the guy was wrong?
Speaker 1: We were right. The Jewish guy was wrong because I
Speaker 1: looked it up today just to be sure, and apparently
Speaker 1: kosher salt is kosher because in fact, they said it
Speaker 1: should be called koshering salt. Yeah, because it's used to
Speaker 1: make things kosher. It is not the salt itself, it's kosure.
Speaker 1: It would have kept Chloe out of that kind of
Speaker 1: suspostion Chloe, it sounds like you have a lot of
Speaker 1: tact and dignity, yes, and that it sounds like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy's a bit of a chlow part. I'm not
Speaker 1: ruining the dinner party. So that is from Chloe in Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 1: Thank you. If you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about all of your misadventures out
Speaker 1: there based on Stuff you Should Know. You can tweak
Speaker 1: to us at s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: does it how stuff Works dot com