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 all about them in this classic episode.
Hi, everyone. We're going to jump back in podcast time to September fifteenth, twenty fifteen, for this week's selection, How Publicists Work. We've never had a publicist, you know why, because nobody cares that much about us. So it's really not a job that would get a lot of billable hours, if you know what I mean. But anyway, it's a pretty fascinating, weird job. And we heard from a few publicists, I believe when we recorded this, so maybe we'll hear from some again. How publicists, publicists, publicists work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarks, Charlte w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry so Stuff you should know.
This is it? That sounded like you're 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.
That'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 going to get well, we're going to 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 Billy 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.
Okay.
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 was this.
So the circumstances depend on the whether the publicist is fibbing or not.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying that all publicists do is 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. Yeah, that kind of thing. There's like a 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 her that kind of stuff. There's 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 going to have a publicist, but it's really a matter of your directive and your goal. 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 in a 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 and 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.
Bye, 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 P. T. Barnum. But I don't know if that's true. I don't think that's verified.
Well then say Mark Twain.
Yeah, PT Varnember Mark Twain.
Everybody says, oh it was a Mark Twain saying.
And I don't think that's even true anyway. I think maybe that.
Used to be true, that it was a Mark Twain saying.
No, that no such thing as bad publicity. I think at one point that may have been sort of true. Yeah, these days there's clearly bad publicity. Sure, So you I said the word flak earlier as a teaser. Apparently two flak or a flack is a term originating from Gene Flak, early movie publicist Hollywood.
And that's with the ck that's right flak to take. Flack is named after a type of German gun in World War Two, a German anti aircraft gun.
Two different things, but in this case it is a pejorative term for publicists. 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, like, you can't be trusted, you'll you'll do anything for money. That's what a flack is to them. That's like they One article I read said that's like calling a personal injury attorney an ambulance chaser.
Yeah, 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, here hold this baby lamb. Yeah, oh, we take your.
Picture exactly, and then they get photographed later eating euros 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, it seems like a huge wasted 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 going to 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 we pick it on him.
He just seems like the type who would donate a bunch of money to a homeless shelter. Okay, and go down there himself and help out. Great, so Billy Ray's going to be down there. Plus it rolls off the tongue Billy Ray. Sure, so why don't you send one of your cover reporters down and let's get some coverage for this. And since their 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, that's 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 and facts it to every media outlet they can find a zero response.
Yes, so good. 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 journalists back to the publicist. If they hear heard Billy Ray sires Drenk a bucket a tequila and ran over a prostitute with his car. They will then get in touch with the publicist and then they go buddy, hey, we go back a long way.
Would I lie to you?
What I lie to you? Uh So that's how that goes, and they want they will be more forthcoming with people who have It's a scratch your back, you scratch mind 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 he's going to get the better treatment from the publicist than somebody who ignored the pitch before.
That's right, a lot of backscratching, a lot of backscratching.
He's in the machine.
I've seen a lot more women as publicists than men, and I've always wondered why that's true.
I don't know that that is true. In researching this, I saw about an equal amount. I really 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 uh were able to like smooth out a situation. It's some big dumb guy. Yeah, but I guess the guys who were publicist 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 your client did or why they did some stupid thing.
Let's say, you know what, it's really none of your business or bothers. Bad publicist?
Yeah, well that was something I ran across, as you know, saying something like my client needs their privacy respected right now? Sure 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 over gift back from Fred Siegel. You like the last one, right, But publish 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 your band 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 on as the interviewee. If they ask this, this is how you should probably deal with it.
Don't answer that, Yeah, don't ridge 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.
Yeah.
Those are great. Yeah, I just sit around 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. 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 gonna 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. 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, but the media needs a publicist because they've got deadlines and they need to come up with story ideas, and if something is brought to them, that's great, that's good, But that media professional has a reputation to protect. Be like, you know, Billy Ray Cyrus got off of his couch and mailed a check for five hundred dollars to a local homeless shelter.
Yeah, boring.
Yeah, and it came in a pressure release 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 they're beat and even more than that, tailored to that reporter's audience. Yes, there's a good likelihood the reporter will say I'm listening, right, and that's just music to a publicist.
Hears sure, just to be listened to.
Yeah, that's when you throw it into fifth gear.
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 are going to be eating a lot.
I didn't run the story, and he's complaining.
Crying when I saw him choking up in the bathroom.
While they may get a good laugh out of that, probably won't want to work with you as much. You 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 you are your hours are basically.
All hours whenever you're needed.
Right, So, not only does your publicists frequently also have to do other stuff or people associated with the publicist, I have to do things like pick up things for the client system. Yeah.
Sure.
In addition to that, like the higher up you go on the food cham which you'll talk about in a minute. The more that that client feels a okay 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 spend that or just you know, the apology is always very funny to me.
Awkward, Well, it's never like.
Did you hear about Chris Carter, the NFL guy. He's a former NFL player wide receiver. 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. It's 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, da da da da da, just make sure you have a fall guy on your team, like the guy in the car that's like, it's my weed, wowly, And he got in big trouble for that and his apology. His apology was like that 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, Like, how can you say that days later? It's just so obvious. It's a forced, insincere apology.
So he either had a bad publicist, yeah, 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. Sure, the reasoning behind it, the rationale, the wording of it, just the logic behind the apology is probably going to be crafted by your publicists. 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 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 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 the story, went to Elton John's house and spelled out their band name and fire on his tennis court.
No.
I hadn't heard 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's like nothing true about it. And he's like, no, they completely fabricated that story. Huh as a publicity stunt that never happened.
Huh. Yeah, So why even go to the trouble of it where 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 him to call Elton John. You know, I don't know. So I'm curious. I wonder how many media stories are just totally fabricated matter of fact. I'd be you out there in podcasts. Let us know if you know a media story that was just totally fabricated that everybody takes his fact right, we want to hear it. I love stuff like that.
I do too, all right. We mentioned earlier that you 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. Now, the entire career of publicists begins as a hands on experience. Yeah, you need to be in 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. Now you're still gonna 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, 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 that 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 are, 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, Freddy Freddie Cyrus, Freddy Freddy 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 epk's electronic press kits and blasting those out. Basically all of the nuts and bolts of the job you're going to be doing as a junior staff publicist or an assistant. Not a bad gig. If that's what you want to do now, and if you stick to it and you're get 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 like 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. We will talk more about networking and some of the skills you still need.
Can I make a confession. Yes, I'm possibly the worst networker on the planet. 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.
That's pretty good at it.
You're good at networking, Yeah, because I enjoy it.
Yeah, And I don't consider it 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, enjoy meeting and and getting to know professional colleagues. Yeah, and then later on if I can hit them up for something, If they hit me up, that's great. But if not, it's just something 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's that just?
I think that's a skill that everybody should have. Yeah, right, instead of being like a misanthropic recluse, you know.
Put yourself out there. I agree. Well, one of the skills that I don't think we pinpointed was networking without seeming like you're networking, which is sort of 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, is that what it's all about.
That'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.
I read a blog and I sent it to you, and I want to shout them out because they sonic bids s and ic b id 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 thirty seven Media and Lily Golightly of Golightly Media. And I think they work with bands and musical artists mainly. But it was super insightful and they said just some little tidbits here, like I was always curious how they get paid, and I think if you're a publicist for a person and like you were on retainer, then you just get a salary or if you're a part of a firm that just works with that person. But you can also just be hired for a campaign.
Right, So, if you're a and you have gone to the trouble of like going in and hiring a producer to produce your albums, 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. Like you need to say, can we see some of the other campaigns you've run, what are your ideas for this campaign? Who have some of your clients been in the past, what are what are what's some of the press that you've gotten? You want? Yeah, you don't want to just be like throw a darted a phone book. 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. Julie said that they try and get out for major artists, three or four months ahead of the release of the album is when they want to start their job. So it's not like, hey, it drops next week, let's think of some good ideas, you know, they want some good lead time. And they said that they like to work around goals if there 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. 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, morning TV, getting you in the local newspaper or alternative newspaper to get you some press.
And this is I mean, if you have like, this is stuff you can do yourself. But one of the things that you are hiring when you ira a publicist is their context. Yeah, absolutely, Like you don't have the context, you're 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, yeah, and removed enough that they can see it objectively through a journalist's size, and then pitch it in a way that's probably going to get better more bites.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Because the artist we've even experienced this as the ones who gets their feelings hurt, saying like, oh man, 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 that doesn't do much for us anyway. Lie, we got this other thing that's better. Lie.
Right.
The other thing they're gonna be doing if they work for you, they are going to be sending you weekly or bi weekly reports on what's lined up, who passed on stuff, who bit 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, fifteen 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 know, if you remind me, let's talk Penny C.
Sansy Vieri, Yeah, from HuffPo. She 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.
It's the number one rule. Number two rule is no the rules.
Right, got to play within the game if you start, and you can bend rules, but if you start breaking them, people have a long memory.
Well here, 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 don't follow the rules of pitching. So one of the rules is no phone calls.
You just don't use the phone all email.
Yeah, especially if you're cold calling people like I guess if you have a relationship with somebody, you can pick up the phone and call them, But you don't send an email blast and then a day later follow up on the email by phone. Apparently that's the worst thing you can do.
Yeah, you don't want to bug people.
No, And it's very easy to come off as like pestering a reporter as your publicist.
I bet.
So 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 of New York and LA, like, what else do I need to know about?
Well, not even that. It's like 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 roofs, so maybe the Today Show would want to talk to us about our song.
If it didn't think about that.
I'd be a great publicist a songwriter. I'm terrible at networking.
Google alerts. That's kind of a no brainer. I would think understanding the importance of local media. That's a good one because while your artist is not going to be super stoked about appearing on Good Morning Toledo, Hey, if there's a tie like you're from Toledo, you yeah, then that's probably a smart thing to do because the local media loves people that were from there that moved away.
Right, plus they still live there. Plus missus san Cvieri makes this point, or miss sansy Vier sorry, makes this point that 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. 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. And then earlier you mentioned something about subject lines for emails. I never really thought about this, but Penny says, Can I call her Penny? You can't in a first name basis.
I call her Miss SANSAVIERI 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 a glow of emails that people receive, especially journalists, you want to grab their attention otherwise it's just going to be bye by time.
Yeah.
So, but you also have to be 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 else it seems desperate, which you'll turn somebody off.
Journalists.
Publicists want to kill journalists and vice versa.
Yeah, it sounds like a weird relationship for sure. Yeah, you know.
And then also do 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 yeah, source. And then this this service that the the journalist calls puts out like a daily or you know, maybe even more than once a day newsletter blast 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, Yeah, and I'm going to connect him.
We've been connected that way before. Who when we had different PR firms working for with us. At times they've gotten in touch and say it 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 ro O, help a reporter out, Yeah, the reporters. And then also I guess there's a lot of PR taste makers out there sure that are just super connected and will basically tweet a lead And you don't have to pay a thousand dollars a month for that subscription service. You just follow certain people on Twitter, and as 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 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.
Man, I need to take back a little bit my tirade about liars. I think that what I'm talking about are people publicists for like big celebrities and stuff like that. Like, we've had publicists work with us, and about eighty percent of the clients that they work with are like people like us, where you don't have to like lie and spend.
Yeah, we're always on our best behavior.
Yeah, it's just you know, regular stuff like let me find a good opportunity for you and connect you. And so it's I was overstating, and I think that's just the far edge of the celebrity end of things. Gotcha, because I just got to thinking about what if they're listening. I don't want them to think I didn't think they were doing a good job. He did a great job.
We'll wait to back off of that one, Chuck.
I got one more little thing on Jim Moran.
Moran Jesus said moron m o n I think Moran, Well, not the way the friends say Moron.
He is was known as the master of the publicity stunt back in the day, like he did things. What his big thing was to take a saying and try and disprove it, like 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 just what you would say today. He walked a bowl through a china shop in New York City. How that go is a stunt? I think they broke some things. He got on a horse for a politician and changed directions mid stream on the horse, like rode it through a river and changed directions. Yeah, like you can do this. And then in nineteen fifty nine, 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 in a big country.
Because they wanted to declare war on the US and then surrender and then get financial aid from around the world because their economy.
But they ended up winning or something. Wasn't that it? He opened an embassy in Washington for a mythical country.
Yeah. Nice, speaking of By the way, I finally saw doctor 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 Seller's man.
Just he did great. But also I mean, like George C. Scott was amazing.
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. He was so good.
Everybody was, uh, slim Slim Chills or Slim Pickens, Slim Pickens Chills. Yeah, there's chili. 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 Publicist episode.
You got anything else? No, I got nothing else.
Thank goodness. If you want to know more about publicists, you can type this word in the search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com. And I said search parts was time for listening to mail.
I did have one more thing, Well, what was it that movie America's Sweethearts? Did you ever see that? With John Cusack?
And I know what you're talking about.
Billy Crystal has played a publicist, a pain in the butt Hollywood couple.
Oh best, best portrayal of a publicist on Seinfeld? The mom from that seventies 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 right. Right. 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 seventies show played Jerry's publicist.
Kitty Yeah, who was also in Friends?
What was she friend?
She played Phoebe's half brother. Giovanni Ribisi played his girlfriend or wife. Oh yeah, which is a weird, fucking mismatched couple. That's odd, and I think they were. They got her to be a surrogate for them, Okay, when Lisa Kudro got pregnant in real life. I think that's how they handled it.
We have watched a lot of teams.
All right, I'm gonna call this one. We were actually right, and this lady was nice at a gender party. How's that for a subject life? 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 kocher salt is actually just salt used for drawing blood out of meat to make it kosher, not salt blasts by a rabbi, and the fellow guest disagreed, to 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 would ever explain 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 a peel 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 koscher is at the same time eating a spite of pasta with turizo. I hope you find this amusing. Please keep up the good work. If you read on the show, please give a shout out to my friend Amber who introduced me to the show. And that is from Chloe to say, 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 tact and dignity. Yes, and exratulations on that. It sounds like, yeah, the guy's a bit of a blow hard. 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 send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com and, as always, joined us at our home on the web, Stuff Youshould Know dot com.
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