TJ Walker explains why major media coverage doesn't require big budgets. In 1995, Gloria Allred showed up to a radio awards show with a handwritten sign to protest G. Gordon Liddy. That 20-second action got national news coverage, proving willingness and creativity beat money.
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There's a myth out there that a lot of people subscribe to, which is if you want to present to the whole world through the media, get on major news networks, major newspapers, you have to have huge budgets, lots of money for graphics, special effects, PR teams. And that can help sometimes, there's no doubt about it. But you don't have to have all those things. Once I was at a talk radio convention. This is when I was hosting full time, way back in 1995. I was in Houston, Texas at the convention, and they were about to give a major award to a talk show host for the. I think they called it the Freedom Award of the Year. I'm on about the second row and I'm having a pleasant conversation with a talk show host next to me. Her name was Gloria Allred. She was famous back then. She's wildly famous now as a prominent attorney in high profile cases. So we're sitting there chatting, and it was right before G. Gordon Liddy, a very famous Watergate criminal and talk show host, was about to be given a Freedom Award because he talked about why people could aim and shoot at federal marshals. Essentially. Some people liked that. Some people found it wildly offensive. So I'm having a pleasant conversation with Gloria, someone I'd heard about for years and had a fascination with. And she says, oh, hang on, I'll be right back. She had taken a piece of paper while we were talking, scribbled a few things. She ran up on stage shouting. It was something to the effect of say no to fascist. She ran across the stage. It only took about 20 seconds. She came and sat down and we continued having a pleasant conversation. Well, that evening, every single TV network had her image protesting this award. And she represented tens of millions of Americans who did believe it was sort of odd to be honoring a host talking about shooting federal agents. So she was able to communicate a very specific political message. And she did it in about 20 seconds with a 5 cent budget. A piece of paper, that's all it took. It was simple, handmade. And she was in the front page of the New York Times the next day. Massive news coverage throughout the United States. It was short, it was brief, but she was willing. The reason it worked, she was willing to attack. She was willing to interject herself where she wasn't invited. She was willing to run up on stage, frankly, something most people would just feel too awkward to do. It would feel too embarrassing to do. But she does show if you have strong beliefs and you're willing to do things in a highly specific strategic way you can get tens of millions of dollars of publicity. Now, she's been great at generating publicity throughout her whole career, sometimes with high profile clients, but sometimes just a particular opinion she has that she wants to interject into a broader news story. And she shows you can do it with gumption, with creativity and with courage, not necessarily with any money whatsoever.
