Man Bites Dog PR: Taking Charge in the Digital Age

Hey there. Welcome to the Confident Communications Podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. Now I've been itching to talk about this topic for a while now. This week, let's talk about public relations, but the side of PR you might talk about over dinner or drinks or. Okay, maybe that's just me. As I'm recording this intro, I'm headed off to Martha's Vineyard for my annual girls trip. We stay at a friend's house on Chappaquiddick. So we always, always talk about current events, pop culture, and of course, a Kennedy story thrown in there. And because all of us have worked in public relations at one time or another, we always get to the down and dirty fast and it is a blast. Just like this interview. My guest today is Gary Schneberger and I discovered that we are cut from the same cloth, both from the Midwest and also we both have decades of work in journalism and public relations. Gary spent more than 15 years as an award winning reporter and editor for newspapers coast to coast, including the Los Angeles Times. And now he works in public relations as the founder of roar, which is the best name in PR ever. He brings a lot of interesting stories into the mix and some of which you're going to hear in today's episode. Gary has a book titled Bite the Dog Build a PR Strategy to Make News that Matters. And I'm going to link to the book in my show notes. It's such a great name for a book. This book offers a lot of helpful tips for people who who work in pr, but also for people who may need it. Now, before we get to Gary, this episode is brought to you by my new online platform that has recently launched the Confident Leader Network. It is the place for learning how to be an indestructible leader when communicating in the modern age. The Confident Leader Network offers monthly trainings in how to's in communication, reputation management and social media to give you the confidence to use online media and social media platforms like LinkedIn, which is going to be one of our topics next month. So you'll gain all the insights you need to be more visible online, mitigate any crises that are coming and managing your reputation and all of it in a language that you will understand. The membership also comes with live online office hours where you can meet with me online in a group, in a cohort. And it's an AMA ask Molly anything. So check it out now@the confidentleader.network work or you can go to my website Molly McPherson Network and you can also see the link in the show notes. Now let's get to Gary. Hello, Gary, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.

It is an absolute pleasure to be here. I heard an earlier guest said it was a delight to be with you and you said it was the first time. So I don't know if pleasure's the first time or the third time, but it is indeed a pleasure to be here.

Well, Gary, you're a PR person. Should have come up with another word to put yourself at the top. Like, it's an amazing, extraordinary, once in a lifetime.

It is a. It is the highlight of my professional career.

Oh, I love it. I love it. And they say PR people aren't honest. Gary. Well, thanks for joining me today. I love, I love speaking with PR people because you. You immediately kind of get into this pattern and rhythm of someone that kind of knows what the world is like. And that' why I wanted to bring you on the podcast because you are the president and Chief Leonine officer of Roar. That's the name of your firm.

That is correct, yes.

And with the. With a great slogan of be heard.

And the reason I am Chief Leonine officer, that just means, like a lion is that our brand is a lion is a roaring lion. We say it's in order to be heard. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's necessary to blow the other guy's hair back a little bit.

Oh, okay. Well, very colorful words, which matches your book that you published called Bite the Dog. Build a PR strategy to make News that matters. Very colorful language.

Thanks. It's funny. I've been writing for a living for 30 plus years, and that's the first book I ever did, so it was funny. I walked into the experience thinking, this is gonna be really simple because I've been writing for so long, there's no way I can. And it was the hardest thing I ever did. So completely different writing a press release or writing a news story as a journalist than it is writing a book. But it got done.

Yeah, because. Absolutely. Because as PR people, we have to get to the point quickly. And a book, you get there somewhat quickly, and you have to fill it with anecdotes and, and, and lessons learned, of course. And your book, I, I breeze through it quickly, not because it's such a small read, but it's a very interesting read because I felt it's. It's very topical. You. You speak about topical events, which is perfectly in alignment with what I talk about as well. Could you explain to me the term bite? The Dog and what it means to you.

Sure. I was a newspaper reporter for 15 years before crossing over into the dark side of public relations, as all journalists like to say. And my first job as a cub reporter, I was instructed by the veteran cops reporter. I was the backup courts and cops reporter. And what he told me. His name was Gary Metro, which is the best newspaper name I've ever encountered. First, it was my first newspaper job. So if you're listening, Gary, you still have the best newspaper name I've ever encountered.

Was he an editor? I have to ask. Was he an editor at the Metro desk?

He was not.

Okay.

He. But he was the. He was the. The. The first chair corpse, Corpse courts and cops reporter for the paper. And as he took me under his wing to instruct me what to do, he said, when you're going through the police blotter, when you're out looking for stories, you don't want stories in which dogs bite men because the argument is dogs have been biting men ever since the two species got a look at each other. What you want to find are stories where men bite dogs. Now, he didn't. I mean, okay, if it actually happened, literally, that would be cool. But he meant those kinds of stories because men don't bite dogs every day. So if you're looking for stories, if you're looking to make news, or as I say, if you're looking to commit news, the way to do it is to bite the dog is to upset expectations, to do something a little bit differently to. That's the definition of being newsworthy.

And I like the example you had in your book about the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. It wasn't that the Cubs won the World Series. It was that, yeah, they hadn't won.

The world series in 108 years. There you go. And. And it was, you know, I mean, there are people who live their entire lifetimes who died at 107 who never saw the Cubs win a World Series. That was a big deal.

Yes. And I lived in Boston when there was a very similar story with the Boston Red Sox. So we've seen that. That hook play over and over again. So, Gary, you know, tell me your opinion on the state of the media as we see it right now. What. What I like. When I was reading your book, I thought, man, it's like Gary stands in the back of the room when I speak, because I love that you mentioned about journalists, that journalists do have a bias. And you probably hear a lot as a PR person, because I certainly do, about the term Fake news. And it just kind of, it comes out of the mouths of people and like, they sneer as they say it.

Right.

So there is this somewhat acrimony towards, towards journalists right now and the news media in general. Give me your thoughts on the news media right now.

I look at the press and I tell all my clients this, that, that somewhere on the spectrum between best friends forever on one end spawns of Satan on the other end is where most journalists fall. You know, you don't want to cozy up too closely because at the end of the day, their job is not to, you know, pamper you, is not to, to do your bidding. So they're out to get a story and you don't want to, you know, be too friendly, too unguarded. At the same time, I don't believe they're fake news. At the same time, I believe most of them are fair. Here's what I said when I said in my book that they are biased. We're all biased. I remember being, you know, sitting in court covering a trial and hearing a grandmother on the stand talk about how she was assaulted by the guy who was on trial. And I'm sitting there as a 21 year old, you know, brand new, freshly minted reporter, and I'm going, that guy's guilty. That guy's guilty. But when I got back and wrote my story, I didn't say that. And I made sure I went out of my way even though I was biased personally to be fair professionally. I gave, you know, the defense good quotes, as many good quotes as I gave the prosecution. That's where I think most journalists fall, is that they are fair. That's all you can ask for. If you're going to quote, the best thing my opponent or the person on the other side of the issue says, then quote, the best thing I say, where it gets into problematic territory is if the gold star quote from the other side gets in there and the dumb thing that came out of my mouth gets in there, then you're not being fair. But most folks are being fair. One point to make, Molly, I think it's really important is that this does not apply to, on the right, Sean Hannity, on the left, Rachel Maddow. And folks like them, they get paid to have opinions. They are commentators, they are analysts. They are not reporters. So when you, when people point to Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow as evidence of bias in the press, they're, they're, they're mistaken because those folks aren't reporters, they're not press in that sense, they're commentators. They get paid to have an opinion. Journalists who are reporting the news get paid not to have an opinion. Most of them will, Will keep that opinion out of their stories.

And the seasoned reporters definitely know how to do it, do it well. And you touch on the point. Exactly. Gary. I cannot give a talk without mentioning that point because when fake news comes up, and it always does, whenever I'm with a client or if I'm speaking or I'm in a workshop and I'm asking for people's opinion, y. The, the lines are blurred. If someone is just on the air, they are considered a journalist.

Right.

And they're, they're conflating an opinion or with the news story. And I think this is the number one challenge, I think, for PR people and for reporters. And part of the reason why people distrust the press so much is they're confusing the who the press really. Really. They're made up of who they are made up of. Like what is a reporter compared to a commentator? So it's good that you point that out in your book.

Yeah, I mean, it is a. You know, I was a journalist, as I said, I was a reporter and editor for 15 years, and people want to say that the press is liberal and, you know, surprise, surpr. Surprise. Studies show that I think 70% of them identify as Democrats. Okay. That doesn't surprise anyone. That is a, as I would say, a dog bites man story because that's just, you know, you're fighting for the underdog and you're. That's fine. But to say that they're, that they're unfair, that they're biased, is not, Is just not the case most of the time. Will some of them do that? Yes. But the good ones, the ones who you really want to be covering your story and the ones you can kind of tell when you talk to them, they're going to put that bias aside and they're going to just tell a story and they're going to be fair and they're going to give you a shot to say what it is that you want to say. And that's the beauty of doing what I do. I mean, with so much dissension in the culture right now, and you know, if you're on social media, as I know you are, you see it all the time. People are fighting. We think we can change each other's minds. With screed, it's not going to happen. But in that environment, to be able to have a chance to speak views that may not be popular or if they're not, you know, with at least half the country is an amazing thing. It's an amazing gift we've been given. And so having that perspective of saying, okay, the commentators may not say nice things about the viewpoints that I hold as an individual, the ideology I aspire, you know, that I have, but the news stories, the fact that they're coming to you and they're asking you for your input on these things is remarkable. Because in non democracies, the side that's not in power isn't getting talked to at all. The side that has the unpopular opinions isn't getting talked to at all. So I just think, I mean, for me, truly, and this is not PR guy hyperbole, it's a thrill every day to wake up and see what's going on in the media sphere and find out how I can plug clients into it.

And today, many people, well, at least half the population, would say our dissenter in chief, President Trump, kind of belies typical presidential communications. Tell me your thoughts on President Trump, the communicator.

Yeah, it's, it's very funny in my book. I avoided talking about President Trump for so long because it's, it's, he's just a very hot button issue. Those, you know, folks who love him, folks who don't love him to, you know, to talk about him, to say anything about him, can be seen as either praise where some people be mad at you, or criticism where some people will get mad at you. So I finally get around to it in the chapter on how to overcome crises and mistakes. And the thing I say about him is that the rules that apply to the rest of us in terms of the wise practice of public relations for some reason do not apply to Donald Trump. When he was running for president, there had to have been eight to 10 times that he did or said something that I, as the wizened PR guy of 30 years experience, said, oh, that's it, candidacy's over. I was wrong, obviously, 10 times, because I don't believe what, you know, the oxygen in his atmosphere is the same as the oxygen in our PR atmosphere. It just isn't. And I think what it comes down to is Donald Trump knows his base very well and he does not practice PR in the sense that you and I practice pr public relations. He practices public retaliations. He goes after people who he believes have attacked him, have marginalized him and his followers. His supporters believe that too. And it works in that context. And if it doesn't work for people who don't support him, what does he lose? And at the end of the day, they don't like him anyway. So what is the effect of someone reading a tweet from President Trump being aghast at it? Are they really, really double secret probation not going to support him? No, they already don't support him. So he really loses nothing most of the time in that area. It's a fascinating case study. Someone should write a book about it when he's out of office. I just don't think it'll be me. Yeah.

Oh, people definitely will. And President Trump comes up a lot when I am out on the road and when I'm speaking with people. And just, I was just in Iowa speaking to a group and this question came up about, well, what if President Trump? And I was surprised, most of the people in the room, I assume would be Trumpers. And one, one man asked, well, why can he tell a lie and nothing happens to him? But you're telling us in the news that, you know, you're telling us as spokespeople that we can't lie and you are in alignment with me, it's that you cannot compare President Trump to anyone else because in public relations, we have to message to our publics like whatever they, whoever your, your stakeholders are. But President Trump at least I feel, in my opinion, if to write this book is his public, is, are his, his base.

Correct.

And so he, he knows that he just needs to speak to them. And the issue of him talking about the, the four Congress women when he told them to go back to the countries where they came from, that is typical President Trump rhetoric. That's not surprising. But I will admit I'm a little surprised that he's getting a little bit more blowback than he's had in the past from Republicans. So I, I think it will be interesting to see how that plays out. But y, I think you and I agree that President Trump is just, he is a one of a kind communicator in terms of someone who's held that office.

Right. And one of the first things I tell clients when we start working together is you see how Donald Trump does it. Now forget how Donald Trump does it because it's simply, it simply will not work for anyone else. I truly believe it is in the purest, most spot on use of the word. It is unique to him and him only the way that he does it. I'm not saying it's right to do it that way, but it works for him. And anybody who tries to do it that way. If you are a business owner or an entrepreneur or an author, expert, speaker, coach and consultant and you want to speak to the news of the day and you want to get on Twitter and you have. Even if you don't have a decent following and you say some of the things he says, as intense as those things are, as fiery as those things are, it's going to hurt you. I guarantee you it's going to hurt you. He's the only person I believe it doesn't that at the end of the day, it didn't sink his candidacy. And at the end of the day, we'll see what happens in 2020. But, you know, to see what the final chapter is that's written on that. But first, advice to any client. Study what Donald Trump does. Take a look at what Donald Trump does and then forget it ever existed.

Yes, that's good advice. Now, I think you and I would both agree that President Trump does have a certain sense of control of the interviews that he does. It may not go how he likes, but he's able to kind of pivot it back to him and, and get out saying whatever it is that he says. How can you to the listeners, is there a secret to making sure that you are in control of the interview? If you're being interviewed by newspaper reporter radio or on a podcast, how can you stay in control as opposed to the response?

That is a great question. And I don't often say that. I have. In fact, I have one client who when he first started doing interviews, after every question, he said, that's a great question. And I said, okay, if you say it's a great question, after nine questions, people are it. It loses it. It dilutes the effectiveness. So only use it for really great questions. So that was a really great question. And the answer to that question is, I can do more than suggest something. I can guarantee Molly right now, I can guarantee.

Okay, let's hear it.

I can guarantee how anyone listening can be in control of the interview that they're asked to do. Are you ready?

Ready.

Do the interview.

That's it.

That's it. Because here's the fallacy that the reporter is somehow in charge of the interview. He or she is not. The source is. The reporter needs what you have to say in order to have content to report to his or her audience. So if you don't say anything, if you were to ask me a bunch of questions and I would just sit here silent, you wouldn't have a podcast. I mean, you'd get Another one. But you wouldn't have a podcast that involved me. You truly, if you do the interview, you can control the interview by going in there with an agenda. That's not a bad word. Going in there with your talking points, what you want to communicate, what your messaging is, what your important points are, and then speaking those. Now you'll get asked questions. This question that you just asked me about, is there a secret to making sure you own the interview? If I didn't really want to talk about that, as a matter of fact, I really did want to talk about that, but if I didn't, I could say something. What I call the bump and run. It's a football term, but it's acknowledge the question and then sort of move on very politely to your answer. So I could have responded to that question with, you know, Molly, that's really an interesting question, but I think the issue really is trundle, trundle, trundle down the point, wherever I want to talk about. You can deflect those questions again, not evasively, but to ensure that you're getting the opportunity to answer the way that you want to answer, to advance your agenda for that, for that conversation. This has been great. You and I have had a conversation. I haven't had to do any of that because my agenda for this conversation is to help people understand a little bit more about public relations and to talk with someone like you who, as I did research beforehand, I'm like, wow. She and I, like, agree on a whole bunch of stuff. This is going to be fun. But if you do the interview, so many people are afraid and nervous that they're going to get pinned down by Mike Wallace in some kind of, you know, firefight. And that's not the case. Even the most hostile questions can be graciously kind of set aside and you can talk about what the real issue of something is. Yes, you'll get reporters who occasionally will come back at the question. Three, four, or five times. I've been in interviews where I've politely sidestepped, not avoided, not. I wasn't afraid to answer the question. I just was. That wasn't the question. I was there to answer. And I found ways to touch on the answer, to shade around the answer, but really getting across what it is that I wanted to talk about. The best thing people can do, the thing that they must do when they go into an interview, is have, you know, what are the three things that you want to say? Have those written down, have the number one thing you want to say if you only get one, have it written down in 25, 15 and five words, because you may only get five words. I put a spokesperson one time on. Of the Tyra Banks talk show. He never got a chance to speak.

Okay, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Tyra Banks. I have to know the client that you got on the Tyra Banks bank show.

I was working for a nonprofit, a nonprofit organization called Focus on the Family. I forget what the subject was, but the, the, the, the spokesperson was our vice president of, he was a co host of the radio program Focus on the Family. Has a, has a radio program whose audience numbers in the millions. And he was part of a panel. There were like four or five guests. And if you ever watched Tyra's show when it was on, it was a bit of a free for all.

Well, it was. I still don't see, I don't see how this guest fits into the subject matter. Unless you're telling me, was it about families? What was Tyra talking about that day?

It was some kind of family issue that he, as a psychologist, had some insight on and he somewhat wisely chose to sit there and not jump in and get caught up in the fireworks works. So.

Oh, my goodness.

But all that to say, know what you want to say and if you don't have the opportunity to say it, then live to fight another day. But if you do have the opportunity to say it, it may be the only thing you get to say. If you only have five words to make that impact, go ahead and make that impact and say those things. But be prepared. And if you're prepared, you have no reason whatsoever to be nervous about it.

Right? Right. Yeah. So there's, there's so much to unpack there. One, I think you're like me, we always are looking for that Mike Wallace reference, but as time marches on, the room gets smaller and smaller of people who have any idea who Mike Wallace was. And we can't come up with the new Mike Wallace because, you know, really, the, the penetration of television news and network news is not as strong as it was before. So maybe it's Tyra Banks. Who knows? I don't know.

And so many of the questioners now are the folks we were talking about earlier, the Sean Hannity's and the Rachel Maddows and those folks. And a lot of the interviews that you get now is echo chambers in some sense. Right, right. Is there, there you go on a liberal talk show or a conservative talk show, and you're a liberal or a conservative pundit. And you just kind of go there and, and, and it's an echo chamber for your views. And then they have like one sort of designated other side person who comes on and sort of good natured and talks about things. But yeah, there's not a lot of, of well known people like Helen Thomas. Right. The, the longtime White House correspondent who would be the first questioner at, at presidential press conferences. There's not a lot of folks like that.

Okay, so now it's two people. Yeah. Two people who have passed. Yeah. So they're not, they're not even alive anymore. Yeah.

All of your listeners have to go to Google now and check all that stuff out.

Google. Helen Thomas. Yes. And so. Well, she was in the American President too, if people didn't watch that movie. But, but the difference is, and I don't know if you find this, this, this, this block for a lot of spokespeople or people who have to sit down for an interview is fear.

Yeah.

You know, they're scared and we want to. And you're essentially saying remove the fear and look at it as an opportunity to put out your message. Now, how would you define the difference between spinning a message or framing a message?

Oh, yeah, spin is. There's an element. I mean, I hate the word because there's an element, there's an implication in the word spin that you're being dishonest and you're not telling the truth. And when I was talking earlier about bumping and running a question, I wasn't in any way advocating being dishonest. I was advocating saying what it is that you're for, rather than jumping into the agenda of maybe barking about what you're against, putting forward what it is that you offer and doing it in a way that how what you do, regardless of what your business is or regardless of what your views are, how that makes a difference. And it's interesting that you talked about earlier, actually, before we started the conversation, you and I were talking and you talked about how you love anecdotes. One of the things I always tell clients is always have three anecdotes to illustrate the impact or the need for their ideas, products and programs and to always speak, when possible, in stories, not statements. So I would say the difference between spin and framing is framing is just, is simply putting your best rhetorical foot forward. It's being mindful of your messaging. And a key point about this, Molly, a key point about this is so many people, and I had to learn this as an author and you think as a PR guy who wrote a book, I'd know this. But when I did my first interview for my book, I had, you know, your book has a message. When you write a book, your book has a message, but your book's message is not your media message. Your book's message is different. You're going to a different audience. Your audience in an interview and I listened to a podcast you had with Brad Phillips and he hit it on the head. The audience isn't the press. The press is the pass through. The audience is their audience. You want to get through them. So your messaging as an author isn't your book message. You need to translate it into a media message. Your messaging as a company isn't your mission statement. You need to translate that into a media message that will compel people who are listening to, want to engage with you. So for me, framing is putting that message in the most alluring, engaging way to get people to want to know more about it, to buy your book, to reach out, to talk to you about your services, to. And here's a word that you don't hear ever really anymore in public discourse to persuade people to your opinion. We are of the generation where we still remember when people tried to persuade each other and not, not cudgel each other with social media arguments. There is an art, and I think framing is the art of mustering an argument in a way that can persuade rather than degrade or explode.

Yeah, well said. Well said. And spinning is really from a more of a distorted view of the profession of PR and how we're messaging when truly what it is is you're framing your message. You had pointed out about the writing down the words. I like hearing the 25 and 15 and five words. I've read a lot of media books and I've seen a lot of media, media trainers. I have not heard that before. Breaking it down. Tell me specifically why 25, 15 and 5.

Really, it's helps you no matter the, the medium that you're speaking in. So if it's television or radio or print, and it helps you when you're in a situation of like my former colleague was with Tyra, when there's a bunch of people screaming, it just, it allows you to unfurl a bit at 25 words. If you have, you know, 30 seconds, if you only have 10 seconds, or if you, if you're trying to get a word in before the break, right before the. And we're going to commercial, you have five words to say what it is you want to say. That's it allows you to be prepared to hit your mark when your mark presents itself, no matter how long that mark might be, even if it is again. The only time you get is when the host of the radio program says, okay, we're going to break, we'll be back. And then you can jump in and say in five words whatever it is that you want to leave people with.

Well, now, speaking with your Tyra experience, I don't know if you classify that as a win or not, but you want. I had mentioned the, the anecdotes and the one anecdote that I, that I loved in your book is when you spoke about Richard Hatch. And again, another throwback person. But Richard Hatch happens to be alive at the moment. But he of course was on Survivor, I believe the second. Was he the. On the first season or first.

He was, he was the first winner. He invented, he invented how to win a cutthroat reality game for sure. The way he played Survivor. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

So Richard Hatch, the last time in my mind of Richard hat is he served his prison time. Yeah. In Plymouth, Massachusetts. So whenever we would drive back from the Cape, I always think we'd always talk about Richard Hatch. But at any rate, I love the press release. Well, first, you have an example of a press release in your book that you wrote when he was appearing at an event.

Correct.

So tell me a little about the story about the event and how someone somewhat derailed it for you from a PR point of view.

Yeah, the, A client of mine created a festival and it's, it is, it's, it's ingenious. It's a festival of COVID bands. And in fact, it's coming up this weekend. The third one is coming up this weekend. It's a festival of COVID bands. And this is the first season. This, this Richard Hatch example that we're talking about.

Okay, we hold. I'm going off topic for a minute, but when I hear cover bands, you mean. So this is a, a festival where the only acts happen to be acts of specific cover bands. So give me an example, Gary, of some of the COVID bands. Who are they covering?

Oh, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Yeah, I mean, these are, these are the region's, truly the region's top cover band.

Okay.

And the one that's, that's happening as we speak right now, this weekend, there's going to be almost 60 bands on five stages for three days. But the idea was it's being held on an island by Lake Michigan. I live in Southeastern Wisconsin, northeastern Illinois area. So on the banks of Lake Michigan in Kenosha, Wisconsin, my hometown is a island called Simmons Island. So the organizer of the event, my client thought, okay, we're going to call the event Tribute island island because they're tribute bands. And, you know, what can we do for Islands? Well, there's. There's two ways you can go. You can go Gilligan's Island.

Yes, Gilligan's island. Yes.

And. And oddly enough, this client had brought Bob Denver, who was Gilligan when he was still alive, out, and there's only a couple folks who were still alive from that show, Ginger and Marianne. And they don't do public appearances much. So you can either go Gilligan's island or you can go Survivor, because a lot of that happened on an island. So, okay, the decision was made to go Survivor, to have Richard Hatch be the host, and we brought him out here to. To be the host of the program. He's a great guy, by the way, not the, you know, evil, manipulative guy that you, you know, he was playing a character who among us would not, you know, within the rules, do what we could to win the show. But he came out and it was, you know, we got some. Some attention for him being out at the show, and he was shaking people's hands and he was great. But what happened was, it was the first year and we had good cover bands, but, you know, I had been trained, or I had. I had trained the. My client, the owner of the company that brought the folks out to speak to the press if he needed to, but mostly told everybody, just bring the press to me. If they come out to the event, I'm there on site. Well, a reporter came out to cover the event, bumped into someone who was on our team who was not trained to talk to the press and, and got asked a couple questions, and the member of our team said, yeah, it's a great time. We're having great fun. It's going to be really good next year because we're going to get really, really, really good bands.

Ouch.

So, you know, we read that in the paper the next day and it's.

Like, oh, it made the paper.

Yes. Oh, boy. Yeah, it did. So I tried to unwind the clock a little bit. By the time it got to me, I heard about the quote. And by the time it got to me, I. I tried to unwind it with my quote, which was the last question quote in the story. I forget exactly what it said, but it was. It was to, you know, sort of soften that blow a little bit. But what that quote, we're going to have really good bands next year did is it made all the bands who played, I'm sure, feel disrespected. And the message it sent to. To fans who paid to come out, the thousands, tens of thousands of people who came out to watch the event, it probably made them think, well, gee, we got ripped off. I mean, there are better bands who could come out here. It's just not a good thing. And, you know, it's funny. As a writer, I'll add this aside. I always love the idea of COVID bands, and I wish that were possible for folks like me and you, that we could go have a concert somewhere. We could sit down with a typewriter on a screen or a computer on a screen, and just like, now I'm gonna do a little Hemingway and we could just type out, you know, some Hemingway on the screen in front of everybody, and we could just be cover writers. Wouldn't that be fun if we could make money that way?

In my head, I'm already thinking if, if I planned this island theme, I would have all the COVID bands, of course, but then I'd have a special section in. In homage to Gilligan's island where I'd have a cover band of the Honeybees. Did you ever remember that episode?

Yes, absolutely.

When they sang as the and Mrs. Howell. They were the Hover Bee, the Honeybees. But yeah, that's the Gen X. I guess that's the Gen Xer in me comes out.

And it is, Molly. It is the biggest cover band festival in the U.S. i mean, truly, like 10,000 people come out to this thing. It's amazing how popular this is.

Oh, well, it sounds like fun. Oh, it does sound like fun. Now, the press release that you had for this event and one of the reasons why I wanted to ask you about it is I love your press release for it. It's or media advisory. I mean, it's just. It's one page and at the end, you know, you have the who, the what, the where, and the when. Perfect for the press. But then you have the why should you care? And it says, why should you cover? You could have made a cover band reference, Eric, if you want to be super. But you said, yeah, Hatch defined how to win a competition reality show, and he has many insights, so on and so forth. And he also was on Celebrity Apprentice, and this is when Donald Trump was just elected. So you found the hook or you found the story, the bite the dog Story.

Right, right. The idea there was to give. And you're exactly right to use hook. I love to tell clients what we want to do is put as many hooks on that line. So as we're dragging it through the media sphere, it's going to tag somebody. So if they're not interested in cover bands, but they are interested as a reporter in President Trump and someone who has insight on being behind the scenes when the cameras weren't rolling, and Rich had no problem talking about Donald Trump when the cameras weren't rolling, they could do that, too. So that got us a little extra bit of interest. And again, that's part of my, you know, our philosophy at ROAR about how to commit news. And that is to. To meet expectations, exceed expectations, or upset expectations. And one of the things I think we did with that was ups was exceed expectations. You knew that Richard Hatch was there because he was on an island. He want any one survivor. But. But we're also going to go a little bit farther and tell you he'll give you some insight on Donald Trump if you want it, too.

Okay. And how was the press coverage? Was it good?

It was good. I mean, we didn't, you know, we didn't set the world on fire, but we got. What's interesting is my client, the sponsor, is a publisher of a magazine that's been in town for 40 years. In fact, the first place, you know, talk about coming full circle, the first place that ever paid me to write was this magazine. So now I'm working again, and they're a client. It's. It's really kind of a sweet symmetry. But, you know, the fact that the local newspaper put it on, on page one was remarkable because they're in competition for ad dollars with this client. So that showed the newsworthiness of what was put together and then what we sort of framed up to let people know, you know, again, your audiences are going to care about this even if you don't, even if you're in competition with the organizer, your audiences are going to want to know what's going on here. And that proved to be a successful argument.

Okay, well, Gary, so I'm going to wrap it up here. And you've offered such helpful and amazing advice for people from a PR perspective, but also people who may find themselves as a spokesperson. And even so, we've been speaking about Richard Hatch and Mike Wallace and Gilligan's island and Helen Thomas. So we don't want this podcast to sound like it's straight out of 1999 or 1969 let's bring it into the future or bring it to where we are right now. And if you were to consider yourself, you know, a PR practitioner for the modern age or the digital age, what have you noticed in your years of experience that with the era of technology and online media, is there any trick that you have or any tips that you offer now for any type of PR either as a PR practitioner, as a spokesperson for the new age of media that we're in?

That is again a great question. Truly the, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have worked in this profession both as a journalist and a PR guy to see that the creation of the 24 hour news cycle with CNN and that kind of around the clock coverage. But now we see the. We still have the 24 hour news cycle but now it churns in 24 second increments thanks to Twitter and other social media. So the opportunities to plug into those things, simple things like what's trending on Twitter, how do you plug into that? Google alerts are a great way to know what's going on in the press and then to be able to contact that press or contact other press and say, hey, this is going on right now. We had this happen with a client who has written a book on protection measures for women who, especially when they travel. And we've seen in the last several months those horrible stories in foreign countries and even in the US of women who are, you know, calling for a ride share and getting attacked. And we turned that. But we leveraged that news coverage in that 24 hour news cycle happening in 24 second increments. We leveraged that into a placement in the New York Times. There are opportunities every day. The beautiful thing about my job, the great thing about my job is that I don't know every day what are going to be the opportunities for my client roster until I wake up and I see what's going on. There's one today. I have a client who is very, who is the number one opponent to in sports, what's called tanking the idea that teams want to not necessarily win now in order so they can get, you know, draft picks. Well, just today a pitcher for the Houston Astros came out and said a star pitcher came out and said too many teams are trying to lose today. Well now sports talk radio is going to be lit up, especially in Houston, talking about this issue. I can reach out to sports talk radio folks in, in Texas and one of my clients who's a former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and has Written a book on how to revamp the draft process so we no longer reward teams for doing less than their best. So that's the kind of stuff that every day is an opportunity to see what's going on in the culture and in the media and then find opportunities to leverage that in order to get some attention for a client.

Yeah, that's it. So you had a, you, one of your clients was a gm, a baseball GM of the Reds, correct?

Yeah, his name's Brad Coleman. He was GM of the Reds.

Okay. Now out of curiosity, when the tanking story came out, I think it was like a week ago or so ago, did you think to call him to get a quote or to put him in the, in the mix?

Yeah, he's been, I mean, we have gotten him. It's funny, I tell clients when I on ramp with them, you know, it's going to take a while to build an infrastructure, so don't expect big placements. Brad and I started working together about a year and a half to two years ago and I told him all that old preamble so that he doesn't expect big things right off because we have to build an infrastructure. We have to be able to assess what's going on on a regular basis and then, you know, go out and get news. And within two weeks we got him an op ed in the Washington Post. Oops.

What?

Oh.

Oh, wow.

Because, because someone on the Green Bay packers, somebody suggested when Aaron Rodgers, quarterback of the packers, got hurt, the packers should tank the rest of the year. We jumped on that. Brad wrote an op ed because he is the guy who says change the draft. The team that gets the number one draft pick. The team who gets the number one draft pick should be the team who has the best record but just misses the playoffs, reward efforts. So that became an op ed there. So yeah, he's been, he's toured the country coast to coast, post on talk radio, sports talk radio. What we look for each time is it pops up in new, fresh ways. We look to plug him into that.

Oh, that's the sweet spot of pr, isn't it? Is when you have a client that has a solid message, an easy to understand message. And if there's any type of story that you can connect a dot, no matter how far apart it is, you can make that connection. And in today's, and this is one thing I notice in today's media environment, environment, you know, compared to, let's say 15 years ago, there are more media opportunities. There's, there's a Plethora of media opportunities. He could be on the phone all day or doing interviews online all day. So there's a lot of opportunities as a PR person.

Absolutely. It is no longer. The most influential outlets aren't in high rises in New York. Some of the most influential outlets are in somebody's, you know, spare bedroom. Right. Is in someone's living room. It's, it's. Everybody's their own publisher, Everybody's their own producer. There are so many more opportunities to plug clients into places and those places have increasing influence. Like you and your podcast. Oh.

Oh, Gary, look at that. So, thank you so much. That was, that wasn't a spin at all. You have framed that perfectly well. Gary, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I. You brought some very valuable advice and just very easy to understand advice breaking down that fear and how to make public relations and, and getting on camera or speaking to a reporter easy in these bite sized pizz pieces. So speaking of bite. So your, your book, Bite the Dog. Build a PR Strategy to Make News that Matters. I assume it's on Amazon, Correct?

It is indeed. And Barnes and Noble and other places where fine books and even not so fine books are sold.

Well, I will make sure to include a link for any of our listeners who want to buy your book. I'll include the link in the show notes. And Gary, your court's the president and chief Leonine officer.

That is correct.

Okay. Of Roar, which is be heard. And I'm sorry, this is where my mind goes when I hear Roar. I think of Katy Perry. Wouldn't it be great if you had that song? Do you ever think about that song?

No, because I, I don't know that my ideal client is a Katy Perry fan. And if I may mention. May I mention my website? Our website, of course.

Is it katyperry.com it is not.

They would find something besides good PR advice@katyperry.com but they can find good PR advice and all the services we offer and some client testimonies and all kinds of good stuff like that at Weroar la, which I use to stand for Los Angeles because I have done marketing work for the film community. I still have an office in Los Angeles, but LA does not actually mean Los Angeles. It's the country code for Lithuania. But anyway, it's Weroar la.

Okay. Reor la. I didn't, I did not know of the LA extension. That's. That's interesting. Okay, well, Gary, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. That was a lot of fun. It's always good to talk to another PR person about fun PR events.

Very, very fun. Thank you for your great questions.

Okay. Thank you so much, Gary. I want to thank Gary for sharing his stories and his wisdom from his experience working in news and public relations. You can find a link to his book, Bite the Dog, Build a PR Strategy to Make News that Matters in the show notes. That's it for this week's edition of the podcast. I hope you're feeling just a little bit more confident. Bye for now.

Sa.