Stuff You Should Know - How Publicists Work

Episode Date: September 15, 2015

Some people call them flacks. Other people call them liars. But if you're in the public eye and suddenly have an image problem, you'll call them your best friend. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, this is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry.

So, Stuff You Should Know. This is it. Boy, that sounded like you were introducing the final episode. My voice. This is it. Feels like it's the final episode. You won't be able to talk anymore.

No, I'm getting there. It's not true. You don't know that. How's it going? It's going pretty well, man. How about with you? I think both of us had a bit of a dark time researching this article.

Why? Well, because, and we're gonna get, well, we're gonna get flack, that's a teaser, from publicists, because what I learned is that publicists are professional liars. I would say that depends on the circumstance. Well, what do you mean? Well, you're saying there are publicists who don't lie?

No, I'm saying it depends on whether the publicist is going to the media or the media is coming to the publicist, depending on the circumstance. What I am saying is no matter what, who you work for, if you are a publicist, then a percentage of your job will be lying. Right, okay.

Depending on the circumstance. Yeah. So, so Billy Ray Cyrus- Like you wouldn't lie about something good. Billy Ray Cyrus is like, I am going to donate a bunch of time and money to a local homeless shelter. Yeah, you don't have to lie about that.

The publicist gets on the horn, starts letting everybody know, you guys should come cover this. Billy Ray Cyrus goes and does that and everything's good. Then, on the way home, Billy Ray Cyrus decides to celebrate by drinking a bucket of tequila and runs his car into a whatever. The publicist then starts getting calls and says-

He didn't drink a bucket of tequila. That wasn't even him. That's overstated. What really happened with this? So, the circumstances depend on the, whether the publicist is fibbing or not. Oh yeah, I'm not saying that all publicists do as lie, but I'm saying if you work as a publicist,

part of your job is to cover tracks and to lie. Gotcha. And you know, that, don't hate the publicist, hate the system is what I say. Yeah, they're definitely a part of a larger system. Yeah, a larger system, which includes all of us who digest news. Yeah, especially say like entertainment news,

that kind of thing. There's a whole, there's two, from my understanding, there's two routes a person can take as a celebrity. You can either just go off and be a normal person. And depending on your level, you might have paparazzi following you or that kind of stuff. Sure.

Once you get to a certain level, it doesn't matter what your decision is. Or you can hire a publicist and feed yourself right into that machine to get as much publicity and as much press as you possibly can. Yeah, well, I think any celebrity is gonna have a publicist, but it's really a matter of your directive and your goal.

Right. I think some of those people like to be like that, the old adage, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Yeah, I ran into that, that that's more of a PR term where like, so if you're into PR, you're probably representing a company or an organization or something like that. A publicist is somebody who typically represents

a single person, an artist, an author, a musician, something like that. That's really the only definition I can find for a publicist. And the job, the goal of the publicist is to help maintain and promote the public image of that person that they represent. That's right.

By having a good relationship with the media. Yes. That's where it starts. That's the publicist. And by the way, that no such thing as bad publicity, I tried to find the origin of that. And the closest thing I could find was PT Barnum. But I don't know if that's true.

I don't think that's verified. Well, let me say Mark Twain. Yeah, PT Barnum or Mark Twain. Everybody says, oh, it was Mark Twain saying. And I don't think that's even true anyway. I think maybe that used to be true. What, that it was a Mark Twain saying? No, no such thing as bad publicity.

I think at one point that may have been sort of true. Yeah. But these days, there's clearly bad publicity. Sure. So I said the word flack earlier as a teaser. Apparently, two-flack or a-flack is a term originating from Gene Flack, early movie publicist in Hollywood. And that's for the CK.

That's right. FLAK to take flack is named after a type of German gun in World War II, a German anti-aircraft gun. Two different things. But in this case, it is a pejorative term for publicist. They don't like it. A PR flack. Yeah, you shouldn't say that to someone that works in PR.

No. Or call them a liar. They don't like that either. Yeah. Yeah, I looked it up. Apparently, it means that you can't be trusted. You'll do anything for money. That's what a flack is to them.

That's like, one article I read said, that's like calling a personal injury attorney an ambulance chaser. Yeah. It's just not a nice term. Gotcha. So there you have it. So a publicist, like you said, works for their client

to make them, to get their good deeds out and to, if they don't have good deeds, to spin things to make it look like they do. Right. You know? You hold this baby lamb. Yeah. Oh, we take your picture.

Exactly. And then they get photographed later eating heroes down the block. The two events were totally not connected. No. So what they do is they pitch ideas to the media and they probably have to be good writers themselves because a press release oftentimes is a starting point,

but press releases, as we know, can get lost in the shuffle and never see the light of day. Yeah. Seems like a huge waste of time. It can be, but if you have a good publicist, they will be well-connected to the media to ensure that that publicity blast is not lost. Right, exactly.

So there's direction one, which is from the publicist to the media and the publicist is gonna have all these contacts with different entertainment reporters and business reporters and anybody that could possibly run a story. Yeah, anybody that could possibly run a story on their client, right?

That's right. And they'll say, Billy Ray is going to donate some money. Why are we picking on him? He just seems like the type who would donate a bunch of money to a homeless shelter and go down there himself and help out. Great. So Billy Ray's gonna be down there.

Plus it rolls off the tongue, Billy Ray. Sure. So why don't you send one of your co-reporters down and let's get some coverage for this. Right. And since they're friends, since these people have worked together for decades now, this reporter and your publicist,

the reporter actually might respond and show up or the editor or the news producer, whoever the contact is. That's great. Like you hired a good publicist and now this story is going to make it out there. That's right. Because they didn't just write up a press release

with a bunch of exclamation points in the headline, infacts it to every media outlet they can find and get zero response. Yes, a publicist is only as good as their relationships, I think. The other way on that street that you were talking about is from the journalist back to the publicist, if they hear,

eh, I heard Billy Ray Cyrus drink a bucket of tequila and ran over a prostitute with his car. They will then get in touch with the publicist and then they go, Jack, buddy, hey, we go back a long way. What do I lie to you? What do I lie to you? So that's how that goes. And they will be more forthcoming

with people who have, it's a scratch your back, you scratch mine type of scenario. Yeah, like that reporter that actually showed up at the homeless shelter and covered it and made a nice piece and everything. I'll give you the scoop. When that guy calls, he's gonna get the better treatment

from the publicist than somebody who ignored the pitch before. That's right. It's a lot of back-scratching. A lot of back-scratching. Feeding the machine. I've seen a lot more women as publicist than men. And I've always wondered why that is true.

I don't know that that is true. In researching this, I saw about an equal amount. I used to think that as well, but it seems like there's an equal amount these days. It seems like every publicist I've ever known has been a woman. And I just figured it's because women may be more level-headed and more able to like

smooth out a situation in some big dumb guy. Yeah. But I guess the guys who are publicists aren't big dumb guys like me. I'd be a bad publicist. Oh yeah? So what would your response be if somebody called to find out what stupid thing your client did

or why they did some stupid thing? I'd say, you know what? It's really none of your business. Stop bothering me. Stop bothering me. Bad publicist. Yeah, well that was something I ran across as saying something like,

my client needs their privacy respected right now. Would just immediately shut down a relationship that you've cultivated over the years. That you have to give as a publicist. You are like, there has to be something that you give. So you better have something that will placate the reporter, but will also, is probably not the truth because that reporter

will go off and write the truth about your client and your client will have just gotten horrible publicity because of you. So it's a balancing act. Yeah, or they'll just say, let me send you a gift bag from Fred Siegel. You like the last one, right? But publicist may also, and it depends,

people that have a staff of people working for them, sometimes the lines are blurred on who does what, but a publicist can arrange interview requests and set all that stuff up if you have like a book tour or you're a politician or you're banned with a new album coming out. They might arrange all those interviews, in which case they are prepping two things.

They are prepping the interviewer saying, you can't ask about the bucket of tequila. If you want this interview, I'll give it to you, but this is off limits, all these things. And then as we've learned, when we've had people work with us in publicity, they'll be prepping you as the interviewee. Like if they ask this,

this is how you should probably deal with it. Don't answer that, bridge back to what you were saying before. And my favorite thing ever are videos where celebrities walk out of interviews because the interviewer has asked something they weren't supposed to ask. Those are great. Not to sit around and watch those all day.

Yeah, you can probably find a pretty good super cut of them. Yeah, probably so. All right, well, let's take a break. And when we come back, we will talk a little bit about the skills you need as a publicist. Huh? Let's go, Tiffany.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor- stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude- bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.

Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. We've mentioned lying. And you know, I joke, but for real,

if you want to be a publicist, you better have a certain comfort level with stretching the truth and lying. Yeah. Because you're going to have to do that. If you're not comfortable with that, you shouldn't go into that line of work. Yeah.

Is that safe to say? I think very. You need to be good with people and cultivate those relationships. You need to be a good writer. Well, not only do you have to be a good writer, you have to be a good journalist. And a lot of publicists have a background in journalism

because I kept running into this in this article and another article you sent. The number one rule of being a publicist is to think like a journalist. That's right. Even better than that is to not only think like a journalist, but be able to write like a journalist too.

Because as we kind of demonstrated, that the publicist media relationship is a two-way street. The publicist needs the media to publicize in a flattering manner their client. Sure. But the media needs the publicist because they've got deadlines

and they need to come up with story ideas and if something is brought to them. Yeah. That's great. That's good. But that media professional has a reputation to protect. It can't be like, you know, Billy Ray Cyrus got off of his couch

and mailed a check for $500 to a local homeless shelter. Yeah. Boring. Yeah. And they came in a pressure lease in a fax machine. Yeah. That reporter is not going to have a very good reputation. But if a publicist comes to this reporter

with a great headline, creative pitch, a good story that's tailored to that reporter and their beat and even more than that, tailored to that reporter's audience. Yes. There's a good likelihood that a reporter will say, I'm listening. Right. And that's just music to a publicist's ears.

Sure, just to be listened to. Yeah. That's when you throw it into fifth year. You can't be afraid of rejection. You've got to be outgoing and you've got to take your licks because a lot of your attempts are going to fail just by nature of the job. So you can't get your feelings all hurt.

Yeah. You guess you could, but you don't want to show that because then the journalists will be like, geez, Chuck's such a baby. You were going to be eaten alive. I didn't run the story and he's complaining. Crying. A little whim. I saw him choking up in the bathroom.

While they make it a good laugh out of that, probably won't want to work with you as much. Right. You've got to be very patient and you have to be very flexible because if you're working for celebrities, it is a very tough job. That's another thing too. So your hours are basically all hours. Whenever you're needed.

Right. So not only does your publicist frequently also have to do other stuff or people associated with the publicist have to do things like pick up things for the client. Yeah, like the system would do. Yeah. In addition to that, the higher up you go on the food chain, which we'll talk about in a minute,

the more that that client feels A-OK with emailing you at three in the morning saying like, I need to be reassured about my celebrity status or whatever. Yeah. And the publicist needs to respond. You're basically on call all the time. Also at three in the morning, your client may have done something really horrifically stupid. Yes.

And some paparazzi caught it and now words starting to spread and you're fielding calls from reporters at three in the morning. To get a statement on what your client did. Yeah. I mean, when Twitter came out, I remember thinking at the time like publicists aren't going to be around anymore because people are doing this themselves. Well, they've actually figured out ways to use Twitter. Well, ways to use Twitter, but Twitter is also their biggest security blanket as well.

Because of Twitter, more and more celebrities are saying really stupid things that the publicist is then going to have to cover their tracks. Yeah, that's a good point. So they'll take down the tweet and then try and spin that or just, you know, the apology is always very funny to me. The awkward. Well, it's never like, did you hear about Chris Carter, the NFL guy? He's a former NFL player, wide receiver.

Sure. For the Vikings, right? Yeah. He is in hot water this week because he spoke, was hired by the NFL to come in and speak to the rookies, they often do that for guys that had been in trouble to come in and say, don't do what I did. They're scared straight. Yeah, sort of.

And he said in his talk to the rookie symposium said something about, you know, if you get caught with, you know, just make sure you have a fall guy on your team, like the guy in the car that's like, it's my weed. Wow. And he got in big trouble for that. And his apology, his apology was, was like, that's not the kind of advice I would ever give young people. It's like, but that's the advice you exactly gave young people.

Yeah. Like, how can you say that days later? It's just so obvious it's a forced insincere apology. So either had a bad publicist or didn't listen to his publicist because part of the publicist job is when you're going to make the statement, the public statement, the public apology or whatever, the, the reasoning behind it, the rationale, the, the wording of it, just the logic behind the apology is probably going to be crafted by your publicist. At least help, they're going to help you with it.

At the very least, they're going to want to help you with it. Right. Because they're probably scared stupid that you're going to make it worse. Right. And it sounds like there's a lot of crisis management and that is a part of it. But publicists also are just trying to cook up opportunities. I think that that's way more of the day to day. Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. Depending on the client, of course. Sure. But I remember our former boss, Connell, was in a band years ago. And I read online somewhere that his band was went to Elton John's, do you remember this story? No. Went to Elton John's house and spelled out their band name and fire on his tennis court.

No, I hadn't heard that. To try and get on his label or something. That's a great way to do it. I know. And I went and asked him, I was like, dude, I can't believe you guys did that. And he went, we didn't do that. I was like, no. And he was like, no, these are publicists made that up.

It was like nothing true about it. And he was like, no, they completely fabricated that story as a publicity stunt that never happened. Huh. Yeah. So why even go to the trouble of it? Well, you can just release a story that says that you did that. Yeah. Isn't that amazing?

When something like that could so easily be fact checked, like by calling Elton John. Well, that's the other thing. Like I don't have it in this car. I was going to call Elton John, you know. I don't want to know. So I'm curious. I wonder how many media stories are just totally fabricated. Matter of fact, you out there in podcast land, let us know.

If you know a media story that was just totally fabricated that everybody takes this fact. Right. We want to hear it. I love stuff like that. I do too. All right. We mentioned earlier that you might end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning as a publicist. If you're the publicist intern.

Yeah. That's probably what's going to happen is you might get asked to go get the laundry and then you will say, sure, I'll take care of that for you. And then you will go down the chain until you find the underling who was trying to be a publicist, who still does things like that. Right. This person may or may not be in college, but it's probably college age. That's something that I ran across.

If you want a career as a publicist, you do not need to spend a single penny on higher education. No. The entire career of publicists begins as a hands-on experience. Yeah, you need to be literate. You need to probably have a knack for writing in a journalistic way. Sure. And crafting good headlines and by proxy good email subject lines. But you don't, if you have that already before college, you don't need to go to college.

No, like, you can go in major in journalism or communications or PR, but it's not like you get that diploma, that PR diploma. And you're going to get like some entry-level job as a publicist. You're still going to have to work your way out. See, it says right here, I have a PR degree. So where's my job? Right. My advice is to skip college and go straight into the workforce as early as you can if

this is what you want to do. You know, I feel and I hope that there is becoming a bigger understanding that there are certain fields out there. There are careers out there where you don't have to go to college. No. And there are careers out there where like you should go to a vocational school to learn that trade. Yes.

That college is not necessarily this end-all, be-all that you have to spend money after money after money to get a degree that might even not be used in your field. But I mean- I didn't need a degree to do what I'm doing. No one ever has to see it. Right. And this is a perfect example of that. Chuck, like to be a publicist, you do not need a degree.

You need hands-on experience. You need basically what amounts to an apprenticeship. That's right. Yeah. Good way to say it. So go in and get that job in the mailroom or as an assistant or as an intern. And it would be great if you still live at your parents' house at this point because you're going to get paid like next to nothing.

Yes. And you're going to be doing all the grunt work. Yes. But if you go in there with your mindset to, I'm going to learn this. I want to learn this and move up, you're going to be in the right environment for that. Absolutely. Like we said, you might be picking up dry cleaning. You're going to be returning a lot of phone calls, drafting a lot of probably not-so-fun

press releases. That is graduated from the intern. Yeah. Well, I'm talking about being like a junior assistant. Right, after you get hired on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And press releases that aren't like the sexy ones, you know. You're not going to be writing like the press releases for Billy Ray Cyrus, in other words. No. Those are sexy. You'll be writing them for his dog. Okay. You know? Sure.

Freddie? Freddie Cyrus? Freddie Cyrus, yeah. Okay. You are going to be handling your publicists that you work for, their schedule, their contacts. You're going to be putting together press kits and EPKs, electronic press kits and blasting those out. Yeah.

Basically, all of the nuts and bolts of the job you're going to be doing as a junior staff publicist or an assistant. Right. Not a bad gig, if that's what you want to do. No. And if you stick to it and you're good at it, you're going to end up being a publicist. Right. Not only are you getting the experience you need on the job, you're also in a place where

you're networking too, because that is probably tied for first as far as thinking like a journalist goes, you need to be a pretty good networker. That's right. And you know what? Let's take a break and we will talk more about networking and some of the skills you still need. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen.

So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Joe, can I make a confession? Yes. I'm possibly the worst networker on the planet. Uh, you didn't have to tell me that. I'm really bad at it.

Yeah, it's not your bag. It isn't. Some people are good at networking. I'm pretty good at it. You're good at networking. Yeah, because I enjoy it. Yeah. And I don't consider it, um, networking sounds like just doing something to serve you in the end.

I don't look at it that way. I look at it as like I enjoy making professional colleague, uh, enjoy meeting and, and getting to know professional colleagues. Yeah. And then later on, if I can hit them up for something or if they hit me up, that's great. But if not, it's just something I like. Gotcha. You know.

So, so the proper response to somebody when they come and ask you for something. You're like, oh, I saw this coming. Yeah. That's not the way to respond. Probably not. I'm trying to put myself out there a little more. Oh yeah? Yeah.

Why is that? Just, just, I think that's a skill that everybody should have. Yeah. All right. Instead of being like a misanthropic recluse, you know, put yourself out there. I agree. Um, well, one of the skills that, uh, I don't think we pinpointed was networking without seeming like you're networking, which is sort of-

That was the key. What I was just talking about. And I think maybe that is it too. Like I feel like networking is a task, whereas if I just relaxed and enjoyed it and like just, you know, communing with a fellow human being. Isn't that what it's all about? It's all it is. That's so scary.

If I just took it like that, then I'm sure it would be much more relaxing. Um, I read a, uh, blog and I sent it to you and I want to shout them out because they, Sonic Bids, S-O-N-I-C-B-I-D-S. It's a blog where they did an interview that was pretty insightful actually. They did a double interview. A dual interview with Julie Lichtenstein of 37 Media and Lily Galightly of Galightly Media. And I think they work with bands and musical artists mainly, but it was super insightful. And they said, um, just some little tidbits here.

Like I was always curious how they get paid. Um, and I think if you're a publicist for a person and like you are on retainer, then you just get a salary. Or if you're part of a firm that just works for that person, but you can also just be hired for a campaign. Right. So if you're a band and you have gone to the trouble of like going in and, uh, hiring a producer to produce your album and like you've made a studio quality album that you're proud of, you might want to hit everybody up or gather around another two

grand to hire a publicist for a month to release that album correctly. Not a bad idea. No. And like just hiring a publicist isn't going to automatically make it great. No. Like you need to say, like, can we see some of the other campaigns you've run? Sure. What are your ideas for this campaign? Who have some of your clients been in the past?

Um, what are, what are, what's some of the press that you've gotten? Yeah, like your successes. Yeah. You don't want to just be like, uh, throw a dart at a phone book. Right. Do your research because it's two grand and you're an up and coming band. And that's just, that's not chump change, but if you, if you look at it as a wise investment and you do invest it wisely in a good publicist, it could make a huge difference for you. Agreed.

This, uh, Julie said that, uh, they try to get out for a, for a major artist, uh, three or four months ahead of the release of the album is when they want to start their job. Yeah. So it's not like, Hey, it drops next week. Let's think of some good ideas. Right. You know, they want some good lead time. Uh, and they said that they like to work around goals.

Um, if they're, if it's like a tour, like for us going on our tour, we don't have a publicist. No, but we have promoters working with venues that sort of do the job of a publicist as far as trying to sell tickets. Right. Um, but if you are booking a tour and you have a publicist, they're going to be the ones that are getting you on the local radio stations, uh, morning TV, getting you in the local, uh, newspaper or, uh, alternative newspaper to get you some press. Yep.

And this is, I mean, if you have, um, like this is stuff you can do yourself, but one of the things that you are hiring when you hire a publicist is their contacts. Yeah, absolutely. Like you don't have the contacts, you just the band. One of the problems is you are, it's going to be tough for you to think objectively. Like you're not going to understand why every journalist you talk to doesn't want to automatically do a long form piece on how great your band is. Right.

Publicist is going to be dispassionate enough and removed enough that they can see it objectively through a journalist's eyes and then pitch it in a way that's probably going to get better, um, more, more bites. Yeah, that's a good way to put it because the artists we've even experienced this is the ones who gets their feelings hurt saying like, oh man, they, you know, they interviewed us last time. Why did they do it this time? And they're always great about massaging the ego a little bit saying like, it's okay guys,

it's no big deal. Yeah. Because, um, that doesn't do much force anyway. Lie. Right. We got this other thing that's better. Lie. Right.

Um, the other thing they're going to be doing if they work for you is they're going to be sending you, uh, weekly or bi-weekly reports on what's lined up, who passed on stuff, who, who bit, um, stuff like that. Like they're keeping you informed. Yeah. You're not just like in a black hole and some artists like to be well in touch on that stuff and some probably don't care about being bothered. Right.

You know, they just want to be on Conan. Man, Conan shot in Atlanta 15 minutes from our house where we live. Yeah. And we couldn't get on Conan and it was while our TV show was debuting. I know. You don't have to remind me. Let's talk Penny C. Sanseviere. Yeah.

From HuffPo, she, uh, is the author and CEO of Marketing Experts, Inc. And she listed out nine things that a good publicist does. What's number one, Chuck? Can you guess? Think like a journalist. That's right. You already said that and you were right. That's the number one rule.

Number two rule is know the rules. Right. Got to play within the game. If you start and you can bend rules, but if you start breaking them, then people have a long memory. Well, yeah. If you go on and read, just type the phrase rules of pitching and publicity into your favorite search engine and it will bring up.

Apparently, one of the journalists, things journalists like to do in their downtime is write lengthy blog posts mocking PR and publicists who don't follow the rules of pitching. So, um, one of the rules is no phone calls. You just don't use the phone. Oh, all email? Yeah. Especially if you're cold calling people. Uh-huh.

Like, I guess if you have a relationship with somebody, you can pick up the phone and call them, but you, you don't send them email blast and then a day later follow up on the email by phone. Apparently, that email, that's the worst thing you can do. Yeah. Do you don't want to bug people? No. And it's very easy to, to come off as like pestering a reporter as a publicist.

I bet. So, you, you need to know the rules or your publicist needs to know the rules. Here's a good one that I didn't think about reading outside of your market. I'm sure it's pretty easy to just think New York in LA. Like, what else do I need to know about? Well, not even that. It's like, um, if you're a band outside of your industry. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and just start to think of like, oh, well, we actually sing this song about the oil industry and oil prices are going through the roof. So maybe, maybe the today's show would want to talk to us about our song. That didn't think about that. I'd be a great publicist. Well, you'd be a great songwriter. I'm terrible at networking.

Um, Google alerts. That's kind of a no brainer, I would think, um, understanding the importance of local media. That's a good one, um, because while your artist is not going to be super stoked about appearing on, uh, Good Morning Toledo. Hey. If there's a tie, like you're from Toledo, like you, then that's probably a smart thing to do.

Because the local media loves people that were from there that moved away. Right. Plus also, they still live there. Plus, um, uh, Mrs. Sanseviere makes this point, or Ms. Sanseviere, sorry, um, makes this point that, um, you never know where a local contact is going to end up. Sure. Might hit the big time. It might work for USA Today in a couple of months.

Yeah. It doesn't get bigger than that. Uh, and if they, if they hit the big time on their end, and they have you as like a contact, it could help you out big time. That's right. Uh, and then earlier, you mentioned something about subject lines for emails. I never really thought about this, but, um, Penny says, can I call her Penny? You can.

Can we on a first name basis? I call her Ms. Sanseviere. Okay. Well, she says that crafting a subject line is one of the most important things that you can do as a publicist, and that they agonize over this, and it makes total sense with the glut of emails that people receive, especially journalists. Uh, you want to grab their attention. Otherwise, it's just going to be bye-bye time.

Yeah. So, drafting, redrafting, editing, tweaking. She says it's just like maddening how much you have to do that. Yeah. That would drive me crazy. Yeah. Because it's the minutia, so much importance on the minutia. Yeah.

But it's true, and you have to, you have to put a lot of thought into it, but you also probably can't come off as having put too much thought into it or else it seems desperate, which will turn somebody off. Man, journalists. I bet publicists want to kill journalists and vice versa. Yeah. It sounds like a weird relationship for sure. Yeah.

You know? And then also, did you look up media leads? No. So basically, there's services out there where journalists say, I need a quote on, I'm doing a piece on nuclear fusion, and I don't even know what that is, so I need a source. Oh, yeah. And then this service that the journalist calls puts out like a daily or maybe even more than once a day newsletter blasts to PR people who pay for the service, and then they go

through and say, oh, I've actually got a nuclear physicist on my payroll, and I'm going to connect him. We've been connected that way before. How? When we had different PR firms working for or with us at times, they've gotten in touch and said so-and-so at SpaceX, wants to know if you want to come on and talk about this, or when we did that stuff on ABC about when the housing crisis hit. Yeah, because we're financial experts.

Yeah, so stuff like that. Yeah, I guess it used to come across our desk every now and then. Well, there's subscription services that connect people through leads. From what I'm seeing is Twitter is now filling that void a lot, where you can just search Twitter for the hashtag H-A-R-O, help a reporter out. Yeah. The reporters, and then also, I guess there's a lot of PR tastemakers out there that are just super connected and will basically tweet a lead, and you don't have to pay $1,000 a month

for that subscription service. You just follow certain people on Twitter, and as a PR person, you'll be able to do a PR person, you might have somebody that's a client that you connect. Yeah, that whole new job of being an aggregator, a curator. Yeah, like that, yeah. Like people do that, and that's all they do. But we also live in an age where people are famous for being famous. I know.

Man. I need to take back a little bit of my tirade about liars. I think that what I'm talking about are people, publicists for big celebrities and stuff like that. We've had publicists work with us, and I bet 80% of the clients that they work with are like people like us, where you don't have to lie and spin. Yeah, we're always on our best behavior. Yeah, it's just regular stuff. Like, let me find a good opportunity for you and connect to you.

I was overstating, and I think that's just the far edge of the celebrity end of things. Gotcha. Because I just got the thinking about, what if they're listening? I don't want them to think I didn't think they were doing a good job. You did a great job. Way to back off of that one, Chuck. I got one more little thing on Jim Moran, Moran. You just said Moran.

M-O-R-A-N. I think Moran. Not the way the French say Moran. He was known as the master of the publicity stunt back in the day. Like, he did things, his big thing was to take a saying and try and disprove it for a company. So, he literally went to Alaska on behalf of GE to sell a refrigerator to, well, it says an Eskimo, but I guess an Inuit, which is what you would say today. Yeah.

He walked a bull through a China shop in New York City. How'd that go? It was a stunt. I think they broke some things. I'll bet. He got on a horse for a politician and changed directions midstream on the horse. Like, rode it through a river and changed directions. Yeah.

Like, you can do this. And then in 1959, for the premiere of The Mouse That Roared, the great Peter Sellers movie, he opened an embassy. Remember, the movie was about a small country that declared war on a big country? Because they wanted to declare war on the U.S. and then surrender and then get financial aid from around the world because their economy was in trouble. But they ended up winning or something? I don't know.

Wouldn't that it? He opened an embassy in Washington for a mythical country. Yeah. Nice. Speaking of, by the way, I finally got a chance to talk to you about it. Speaking of, by the way, I finally saw Dr. Strangelove. Oh, really? Great movie.

One of the best. It's up there for sure. One of the best satires, let's say. It is a great movie. Great movie. And Peter Sellers, man, just... He did great, but also, I mean, like, George C. Scott was amazing as well. He was amazing.

And the guy, I can't remember his name, that played the colonel or whatever. The one who lost his marbles? Yeah. Yeah, he was good. He was so good. Everybody was slim chills or... Slim pickens. Slim pickens.

Slim chills. Yeah. No, there's Chilly... Chill Wills was another, like... What? Country western actor. Chill Wills, I think, is his name. Chill Wills?

You'd recognize him if you saw his face. Okay. Chill Wills. All right. Of course, Chill Wills makes an appearance in the How Publicists episode. You got anything else? No, I got nothing else. Thank goodness.

If you want to know more about publicists, you can take this word in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And I said, search bar, so it's time for Listener Mail. I did have one more thing. What was it? That movie, America's Sweethearts. Did you ever see that with John Cusack? No.

I know you're talking about. Billy Crystal played a publicist, a pain in the butt, Hollywood couple. Oh, best portrayal of a publicist is on Seinfeld. The mom from that 70s show, remember she played Seinfeld's publicist? Oh, she was? Yeah. She tried to get the airline pilot kicked out of Jerry's show,

and he ended up getting him kicked off of that. I think it's the one where Kramer's at JFK or LaGuardia, he's making bets on arrivals, and he ends up using the son of Sam Mailbag as collateral. Right. Great episode. But the mom from that 70s show played Jerry's publicist. Kitty.

Yeah. Who's also on Friends? Louis Stamford. She played Phoebe's half-brother Giovanni Robisi, played his girlfriend or wife. Oh, yeah. Which is a weird, like, mismatched couple. That's odd.

And I think they were, they got her to be a surrogate for them. Okay. When Lisa Kudrow got pregnant in real life, I think that's how they handled it. We have watched a lot of TV. All right, I'm going to call this one, we were actually right, and this lady was nice at a dinner party.

How's that for a septic line? Okay. Hey, guys, have a little story. I was at a small dinner party where the host was making his own sea salt. The topic about it's one of those dinner parties. The topic of kosher salt came up, so I dropped a fact from your salt episode

that kosher salt is actually just salt used for drawing blood out of meat to make it kosher, not salt blessed by a rabbi. And a fellow guest disagreed, which I responded, I'm quite sure about this. The host then said, raise your hand if you're Jewish, and the guy that disputed me raised his hand.

Felt rather embarrassed while he explained to me what kosher means, and that salt also goes through the same kosher process that we never explained how. I backed down and didn't try to defend the fact that I just told. It's not that I doubted you guys, though I jokingly said I'd write an email to complain,

but it's because appeal is disrespectful to correct someone on their own heritage. Good move. Yeah. I also didn't want to start any petty debate with someone at someone else's dinner party. Also a good move.

So I decided to take in the embarrassment while he was explaining what kosher is, at the same time eating his plate of pasta with chorizo. Hope you find this amusing. Please keep up the good work. If you're reading on the show, please give a shout out to my friend Amber, who introduced me to the show,

and that is from Chloe Cece. So wait a minute, Chuck. Were we right and the guy was wrong? We were right, the Jewish guy was wrong. Because I looked it up today just to be sure. Yeah. And apparently kosher salt is kosher, because in fact they said it should be called

koshering salt. Yeah, yeah. Because it's used to make things kosher. It is not the salt itself that's kosher. It would have kept Chloe out of that kind of situation. Chloe, it sounds like you have a lot of a tact and dignity. Yes, and it sounds.

Congratulations on that. It sounds like, yeah, but guys, a bit of a blow party. I'm not ruining the dinner party. So that is from Chloe in Sydney. Australia. Thank you. If you want to get in touch with us, we want to hear about all of your

misadventures out there based on Stuff You Should Know. You can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to StuffPodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, StuffYouShouldKnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

visit howstuffworks.com. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.