Selects: How Publicists Work

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – Episode: How Publicists Work

Release Date: May 24, 2025
Hosts: Chuck Bryant, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry
Production: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction to Publicists

In this engaging episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Chuck Bryant and Charles W. Chuck Bryant delve into the intriguing world of publicists. The conversation kicks off with a candid admission from Jerry about the absence of publicists in their own careers, setting the stage for a deep dive into the roles, responsibilities, and ethical considerations that define the profession.

Chuck Bryant [03:05]: "What I am saying is, no matter who you work for, if you are a publicist, then a percentage of your job will be lying."

The Role of a Publicist

The hosts explore the fundamental duties of a publicist, emphasizing their role in maintaining and promoting a client's public image. They discuss how publicists cultivate relationships with the media to ensure their clients receive favorable coverage.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [05:51]: "The job, the goal of the publicist is to help maintain and promote the public image of that person that they represent."

Ethical Boundaries and “Professional Lying”

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the ethical boundaries of publicists. Chuck provocatively labels publicists as "professional liars," sparking a debate about the fine line between strategic image management and deceit.

Chuck Bryant [16:30]: "Alright, 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."

The Myth of “No Such Thing as Bad Publicity”

The adage "there’s no such thing as bad publicity" is examined, with the hosts questioning its validity in today's media landscape where negative publicity can have severe repercussions.

Chuck Bryant [06:20]: "And I don't think that's verified. I don't think that's even true. Anyway. I think maybe that used to be true. But these days there's clearly bad publicity."

Publicist-Journalist Relationships

A key theme is the symbiotic relationship between publicists and journalists. The hosts highlight how mutual trust and longstanding relationships can influence media coverage, often benefiting both parties when managed correctly.

Chuck Bryant [09:03]: "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..."

Skills and Traits of Effective Publicists

The episode outlines essential skills for budding publicists, including excellent writing abilities, networking prowess, and the capacity to handle crisis situations gracefully. The importance of thinking like a journalist to effectively pitch stories is underscored.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [16:46]: "You need to be a good writer. Need to cultivate those relationships. Need to be a good journalist."

Navigating Social Media and Modern Challenges

With the advent of platforms like Twitter, publicists have new tools and challenges. The hosts discuss how social media can both aid in publicity efforts and create additional crises that publicists must manage.

Chuck Bryant [20:16]: "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."

Pathways to Becoming a Publicist

For listeners aspiring to enter the field, the hosts offer practical advice. They advocate for hands-on experience over formal education, suggesting that internships and entry-level positions are crucial for gaining the necessary skills and industry connections.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [24:48]: "If you want to career as a publicist, you do not need to spend a single penny on higher education. The entire career of publicists begins as a hands-on experience."

Effective Campaign Management

The conversation transitions to managing publicity campaigns, where the hosts describe how publicists plan and execute strategies well in advance of major events like album releases or tours. The emphasis is on proactive planning and tailored pitching to maximize media coverage.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [34:23]: "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."

Networking Without Being Overbearing

Networking emerges as a critical skill, with the hosts discussing strategies to build meaningful professional relationships without coming across as desperate or pushy. The aim is to create genuine connections that can lead to mutually beneficial opportunities.

Chuck Bryant [31:52]: "If you're the publicist's intern... you might end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning."

The Intricacies of Media Rules

Understanding and adhering to media rules is essential for publicists. The hosts highlight common pitfalls, such as overusing phone calls, and stress the importance of respectful and strategic communication with journalists.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [37:20]: "One of the rules is no phone calls. You just don't use the phone. Especially if you're cold calling people."

Crisis Management and Reputation Repair

Publicists play a pivotal role in crisis management, helping clients navigate scandals or negative publicity. The hosts share anecdotes illustrating how publicists must swiftly and tactfully address damaging situations to mitigate harm to their clients' reputations.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [21:41]: "He got in big trouble for that. And his apology... is like a forced, insincere apology."

Real-World Examples and Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, Chuck and Charles intersperse their discussion with real-world examples and personal anecdotes, adding depth and relatability to the exploration of publicists' work. They reference historical stunts by publicists and contemporary scenarios involving celebrities and media interactions.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant [44:56]: "He opened an embassy in Washington for a mythical country."

Listener Engagement and Conclusion

The episode concludes with listener interactions, including stories submitted by listeners about their own experiences related to public relations and publicists. This segment reinforces the practical insights shared throughout the discussion.

Chuck Bryant [48:45]: "I have a little story... I just wanted to share how I handled that situation with tact and dignity."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Chuck Bryant [03:05]: "What I am saying is, no matter who you work for, if you are a publicist, then a percentage of your job will be lying."
• Charles W. Chuck Bryant [05:51]: "The job, the goal of the publicist is to help maintain and promote the public image of that person that they represent."
• Chuck Bryant [06:20]: "But these days there's clearly bad publicity."
• Charles W. Chuck Bryant [16:46]: "You need to be a good writer. Need to cultivate those relationships. Need to be a good journalist."
• Chuck Bryant [20:16]: "But Twitter is also their biggest security blanket as well."
• Charles W. Chuck Bryant [24:48]: "The entire career of publicists begins as a hands-on experience."
• Chuck Bryant [31:52]: "If you're the publicist's intern... you might end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning."
• Charles W. Chuck Bryant [37:20]: "One of the rules is no phone calls."

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Final Thoughts

Stuff You Should Know offers a comprehensive and entertaining exploration of how publicists operate within the media landscape. By blending professional insights with humor and real-life examples, Chuck Bryant, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of public relations, the skills required, and the ethical dilemmas faced by publicists today. Whether you're considering a career in public relations or simply curious about the behind-the-scenes work that shapes public images, this episode serves as a valuable resource.

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For more episodes and insights, visit StuffYouShouldKnow.com or listen through your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity. Doesn't sound familiar. Think about how you've been sleeping lately. If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

[Jerry]

In the US moderate to severe OSA.

[Chuck Bryant]

Affects around 24 million adults.

[Jerry]

Many are adults with obesity, and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

[Josh Clark]

Don't sleep on the symptoms.

[Jerry]

Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by Lilly USA, LLC. Look around, everyone. Every car you see is probably on autotrader. Like that sleek convertible that turned heads.

[Chuck Bryant]

When it picked you up from the airport.

[Jerry]

Or the custom ride from your favorite van. Life couple on social media.

[Chuck Bryant]

Even that vintage sports car that's tailing you a little too closely.

[Jerry]

New cars, used cars, electric cars, even flying cars.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, okay, no flying cars yet. But as soon as those things get invented, they'll be on Autotrader. If you see a car you like, it's probably on on autotrader.

[Jerry]

That's kind of their thing. Autotrader.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hi, everyone. We're going to jump back in podcast.

[Jerry]

Time to September 15, 2015 for this week's select selection, how publicists Work.

[Chuck Bryant]

We've never had a publicist.

[Jerry]

You know why?

[Chuck Bryant]

Because nobody cares that much about us. So it's really not a job that would get a lot of billable hours.

[Jerry]

If you know what I mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

But anyway, it's pretty fascinating.

[Jerry]

Weird job.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we heard from a few publicists, I believe, when we recorded this. So maybe we'll hear from some again.

[Jerry]

How publicists.

[Chuck Bryant]

Publicists, Publicists work. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. So stuff you should know. This is it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, that sounded like you're introducing the final episode.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

My voice. This is it feels like it's the final episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

You won't be able to talk anymore.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, I'm getting there.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's not true.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You don't know that.

[Chuck Bryant]

How's it going?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's going pretty well, man. How about with you?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think both of us had a bit of a dark time researching this article.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Why?

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I would say that depends on the circumstance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, what do you mean? You're saying there are publicists who don't lie?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right, okay. Depending on the circumstance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So Billy Ray Cyrus lie about something good.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Billy Ray Cyrus is like, I am going to donate a bunch of time and money to a local homeless shelter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you don't have to lie about that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Says, he didn't drink a bucket of tequila.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That wasn't even him.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's overstated. What really happened was this.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So the circumstances depend on whether the publicist is fibbing or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

And, you know, don't hate the publicist. Hate the system is what I say.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they're definitely part of a larger system.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, a larger system which includes all of us who digest news.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Especially, say, like, entertainment news, 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 you or that kind of stuff. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 the old adage, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I ran into 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

By having a good relationship with the media.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, that's where it starts.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's the publicist.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well then say Mark Twain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. PT Barnum or Mark Twain.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Everybody says, oh, it was Mark Twain saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I don't think that's even true. Anyway. I think maybe that used to be true.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What? That it was a Mark Twain thing?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no such thing as bad publicity. I think at one point that may have been sort of true. But these days there's clearly bad publicity.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you said the word flak earlier as a teaser. Apparently. Two flack, or a flack is a term originating from Gene Flack, early movie publicist. Yeah, Hollywood.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And that's with a ck.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Flak to take. Flak is named after a type of German gun In World War II, a German anti aircraft gun.

[Chuck Bryant]

Two different things. But in this case it is a pejorative term for publicists. They don't like it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

A PR flack.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You shouldn't say that to someone that works in pr.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 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 person personal injury attorney and ambulance chaser.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just not a nice term.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 if they don't have good deeds to spin things to make it look like they do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Here, hold this baby lamb while we take your picture.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly. And then they get photographed later eating gyros down the block.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The two events were totally not connected.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Seems like a huge waste of time.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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. Their client. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And they'll say, billy Ray is going to donate some money.

[Chuck Bryant]

Why are we picking on him?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So Billy Ray's gonna be down there. Plus, it's. It's. It rolls off the tongue. Billy Ray, Sure. So why don't you send one of your cub reporters down and let's get some coverage for this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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, that's. You hired a good publicist and now this story is going to make it out there.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Because they didn't just write up a press release with a bunch of exclamation points in the headline and fax it to every media outlet they could find and get zero response.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, I heard Billy Ray Cyrus drank 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Would I lie to you?

[Chuck Bryant]

Would 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like that reporter that actually showed up at the homeless shelter and covered it and made a nice piece and everything.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll give you the scoop.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

When that guy calls, he's going to get the better treatment from the publicist than somebody who ignored the pitch before.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's a lot of back scratching.

[Chuck Bryant]

A lot of back scratching.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Feeding the machine.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've seen a lot more Women as publicists than men. And I've always wondered why that is true.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 smooth out a situation and some big dumb guy. But I guess the guys who are publicists aren't big dumb guys like me. I'd be a bad publicist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'd say, you know what? It's really none of your business.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's not bothering me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bad publicist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, that was something I ran across was, you know, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or they'll just say, let me send you over a gift bag from Fred Siegel. You like the last one. Right. But publicity 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 a 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Don't answer that. Bridge back to what you were saying before.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 and watch those all day.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you'd probably find a pretty good supercut of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, Chuck, as it starts to.

[Josh Clark]

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[Jerry]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Jerry]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

Provided by Lilly USA LLC.

[Chuck Bryant]

Alright, 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because you're gonna have to do that. If you're not comfortable with that, you shouldn't go into that line of work.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that safe to say?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think very.

[Chuck Bryant]

You need to be good with people and cultivate those relationships. Need to be a good writer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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, 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 the publicist because they've got deadlines and they need to come up with story ideas and if something is brought to them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's great, that's good.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Boring.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it came in a press release and a fax machine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There's a good likelihood that reporter will say, I'm listening.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And that's just music to a publicist's ears.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. Just to be listened to.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's when you throw it into fifth gear.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 journalist will be like, geez, Chuck's such a baby.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You are going to be eaten alive.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't run the story. And he's complaining, crying.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I saw him choking up in the bathroom.

[Chuck Bryant]

While they may get a good laugh out of that, probably won't want to work with you as much.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's another thing, too. So you are. Your hours are basically all hours whenever you're needed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So not only does your publicists frequently also have to do other stuff or people associated with the publicist have to do things like pick up things for the client.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like the assistant would do. Yeah, sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

In addition to that, like, the higher up you go on the food chain, which we'll talk about in a minute, the more 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, 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 and some paparazzi caught it. And now word's starting to spread and you're fielding calls from reporters at 3 in the morning to get a statement on what your client did.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, they've actually figured out ways to use Twitter to their benefit.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The awkward.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it's never like, did you hear about Chris Carter, the NFL guy? He's a former NFL player. Wide receiver.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For the Vikings, Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's Scared straight.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sorta. And he said in his talk to the rookie symposium, said something about, you know, if you get caught with, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, he went, just make sure you have a fall guy on your team. Like the guy in the car that's like, it's my weed.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

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. But that's the advice you exactly gave young people. How can you say that days later? It's just so obvious. It's a forced, insincere apology.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So he either had a bad publicist or didn't listen to his publicist. Because part of the publicist's job is when you're going to make the statement, the public statement, the public apology or whatever, the reasoning behind it, the rationale, the wording of it, just the logic behind the apology is probably going to be crafted by your publicist. At least they're going to help you with it. At the very least they're going to want to help you with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Because they're probably scared stupid that you're going to make it worse.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think that that's way more the day to day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Depending on the client, of course.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

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?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Went to Elton John's house and spelled out their band name and fire on his tennis court.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, I hadn't heard that.

[Chuck Bryant]

To try and get on his label or something.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's a great way to do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, he's our publicist made that up. It's like nothing true about it. And he's like, no, they completely fabricated that story as a publicity stunt that never happened.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Huh? Yeah. So why even go to the trouble of it when you can just release a story that says that you did that?

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Like I don't have a text Elton John, you 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 as fact.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We want to hear it. I love stuff like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

I do too. All right. We mentioned earlier that you might end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning as a publicist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

If you're the publicist's intern.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's probably what's going to happen is you might get asked to go get the laundry and then you'll say, sure, I'll take care of that for you. And then you will go down the chain until you find the underling who is trying to be a publicist who still does things like that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. This person may or may not be in college, but is 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. The entire career of publicists begins as a hands on experience. You need to be literate. You need to probably have a knack for writing in a journalistic way 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, like you can go and major in journalism or communications or pr, but it's not like you get that diploma, that PR diploma and you're gonna get.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Like some entry level job as a publicist. No, you're still gonna have to work your way up.

[Chuck Bryant]

See, it says right here I have a PR degree, so where's my job?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Degree to do what I'm doing. No one ever has to see it.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good way to say it. So go in and get that job in the mailroom or as an assistant or as an intern.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And you're going to be doing all the grunt work.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That is graduated from the intern.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, I'm talking about being like.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

A junior assistant right after you get hired on.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You'll be writing them for his dog.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. Freddie. Freddie Cyrus.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Freddie Cyrus, yeah. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

You are going to be handling your publicist 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. Basically all of the nuts and bolts of the job you're going to be doing as a junior staff publicist or an assistant.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not a bad gig if that's what you want to do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

And if you stick to it and you're good at it, you're going to end up being a publicist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, Chuck, as it starts to.

[Josh Clark]

Get warm outside and nice, it's like nature is calling you to your outdoor space. And what better place to refresh your outdoor space and make it feel more yours than Wayfair?

[Jerry]

That's right. Summer is on its way. And there's no better place to go for outdoor furniture than Wayfair because they have a huge selection of outdoor essentials that are going to help you make your outdoor space more comfortable, functional and most importantly, more you.

[Josh Clark]

Yep, Wayfair has all things outdoor and at unbelievable prices too. So don't wait until summer is in full swing. Get your outdoor space ready today so you can enjoy it all season long.

[Jerry]

And get this, you can get free and easy delivery even on the big stuff. So no more huge delivery fees for patio furniture. Get big stuff like patio sets, gazebos, hot tubs, even outdoor dining sets and more shipped for free.

[Josh Clark]

Wow. So shop a huge selection of outdoor furniture online this summer. Get outside with Wayfair. Head to Wayfair.com right now. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every home.

[Penny C. Sansevieri]

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[Josh Clark]

Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity. Doesn't sound familiar? Think about how you've been sleeping lately. If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

[Jerry]

In the US, moderate to severe OSA.

[Chuck Bryant]

Affects 24 million adults.

[Jerry]

Many are adults with obesity and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated, don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by Lilly USA LLC.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Cho, can I make a confession? Yes, I'm possibly the worst networker on the planet.

[Chuck Bryant]

You didn't have to tell me that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm really bad at it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's not your bag.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It isn't. Some people are good at networking.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm pretty good at it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You're good at networking?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because I enjoy it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 getting to know professional colleagues.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha. You know, so the proper response to somebody when they come and ask you for something, you're like, oh, I saw this coming.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's not the way to respond.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably not.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm trying to put myself out there a little more.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Why is that? Just.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Just. I think that's a skill that everybody should have.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. All right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Instead of being like a misanthropic recluse.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 what I was just talking about.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And I think maybe that is it too. I feel like networking is a task. Whereas if I just relaxed and enjoyed it and just communing with a fellow human being, isn't that what it's all about?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's all it is. Not so scary.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

If I just took it like that, then I'm sure it would be much more relaxing.

[Chuck Bryant]

I read a blog and I sent it to you and I want to shout them out because 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They did a double interview, a dual.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interview with Julie Lichtenstein of 37 Media and Lily Gelightly of Gelightly Media. And I think they work with bands and musical artists mainly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 are on retainer, then you just get a salary. Or if you're part of a firm that just works with that person. But you can also just be hired for a campaign.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So if you're a band and you've gone to the trouble of, like, going in and 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not a bad idea.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No. And like just hiring a publicist isn't going to automatically make it great.

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You need to say, can we see some of the other campaigns you've run?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What are your ideas for this campaign? Who have some of your clients been in the past? What's some of the press that you've gotten?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. See your successes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You don't want to just be like, throw a dart at 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 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. 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. They want some good lead time and they said that they like to work around goals. If it's like a tour, like for us going on our tour, we don't have a publicist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

But we have promoters working with venues that sort of do the job of a publicist as far as trying to sell tickets.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yep. 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 hire a publicist is their context.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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. More bites.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 interviewed us last time. Why didn't they do it this time? And they're always great about massaging the ego a little bit and saying like, it's okay, guys, it's no big deal. Because that doesn't do much for us anyway. Lie. We got this other thing that's better.

[Jerry]

Lie.

[Chuck Bryant]

The other thing they're gonna be doing if they work for you is they're gonna 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. 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. You know, they just want to be on Conan, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Conan shot in Atlanta, 15 minutes from our house, where we live.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we couldn't get on Conan. And it was while our TV show was debuting.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I know. You don't have to remind me. Let's talk. Penny C. Sansevieri.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. From HuffPo. She is the author and CEO of Marketing Experts, Inc. And she listed out nine things that a good publicist does.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What's number one, Chuck? Can you guess?

[Chuck Bryant]

Think like a journalist.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You already said that. And you were right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's the number one rule. Number two rule is know the rules.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Gotta play within the game. If you start, I mean, you can bend rules, but if you start breaking them, people have a long memory.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 journalist 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 one of the rules is no phone calls. You just don't use the phone.

[Chuck Bryant]

All email.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Especially if you're cold calling people. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you get that email?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's the worst thing you can do.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You don't want to bug people.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No. And it's very easy to come off as like pestering a reporter as a publicist.

[Chuck Bryant]

I bet.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So you need to know the rules or your publicist needs to know the rules.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 and la, like, what else do I need to know about?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, not even that. It's like if you're a band outside of your industry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 the Today show would want to talk to us about our song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Didn't think about that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'd be a great publicist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you'd be a songwriter.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm terrible at networking.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, like you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Then that's probably a smart thing to do because the local media loves people that were from there that moved away.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe they still live there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Plus, Mrs. Sansevieri makes this point. Or Ms. Sansevieri. Sorry. Makes this point that you never know where a local contact is going to end up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Might hit the big time.

[Chuck Bryant]

They might work for USA Today in a couple of months.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It doesn't get bigger than that. And if they hit the big time on their end and they have you as like a contact, it could help you out big time.

[Chuck Bryant]

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?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are we on a first name basis?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I call her Ms. Sansevieri.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, you want to grab their attention. Otherwise it's just gonna be bye bye time.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But you also.

[Chuck Bryant]

Crafting, redrafting, editing, tweaking. She says it's just like maddening how much you have to do that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That would drive me crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because it's the minutia. So much importance on the minutia.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But it's true. And 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. Publicists want to kill journalists and vice versa.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it sounds like a weird relationship, for sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You know, and then also, did you look up media leads?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

We've been connected that way before.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

How? Who?

[Chuck Bryant]

When? We had different PR firms working 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because we're financial experts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So stuff like that. Yeah, I guess it used to come across our desk every now and then.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 haro. Help a reporter out, the reporters. And then also, I guess there's a lot of PR taste makers 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. And as a PR person, you might have somebody that's a client that you connect.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that whole new job of being an aggregator, a curator.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, people do that and that's all they do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But we also live in an age where people are famous for being famous.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know, 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, 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, like, lie and spin. Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We're always on our best behavior.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

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. You did a great job.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Way to back off of that one, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

I got one more little thing on Jim Moran. Moran.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You just said moron.

[Chuck Bryant]

M O R A N, I think Moran.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, not the way the French say moron.

[Chuck Bryant]

He 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 is what you would say today. He walked a bull through a china shop in New York City. How'd that go as a stunt? I think they broke some things. He got on a horse for a politician and changed directions midstream. On the horse. Like, rode it through a river and changed directions. 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 was in trouble.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they ended up winning or something. I don't remember. Wasn't that it? He opened an embassy in Washington for a mythical country.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Nice. Speaking of, by the way, I finally saw Dr. Strangelove.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Great movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

One of the best.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's up there for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

One of the best satires, let's say.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is a great movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great movie. And Peter Sellers, man, just.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He did great. But also, I mean, like, George C. Scott was amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

He was amazing. And the guy. I can't remember his name, that played the.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The Colonel or whatever, the one who lost his marbles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, he was good. He was so good.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Everybody was slim.

[Chuck Bryant]

Slim Chills or Slim Pickens.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Slim Pickens.

[Chuck Bryant]

Slim Chills. Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, there's. Chill Wills was another, like, country western actor. Chill Wills, I think is his name.

[Chuck Bryant]

Chill Wills.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You'd recognize him if you saw his face.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Chill Wills.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Of course. Chill Wills makes an appearance in the How Publicist Works episode. You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I got nothing else.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Thank goodness. If you want to know more about publicists, you can type this word in the search [e-mail] and I said search bar. So it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I did have one more Thing. What was it that movie America's Sweethearts. Did you ever see that with John Cusack?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I know what you're talking about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Billy Crystal was played a publicist. A pain in the butt Hollywood couple.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, best. Best portrayal of a publicist is on Seinfeld. The mom from that 70s show. Remember she played Seinfeld's publicist?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, she was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. She tried to get the airline pilot kicked out of Jerry's show and he ended up getting him kicked off with it. I think it's the one where Kramer's at JFB K or LaGuardia. He's making bets on arrivals and he ends up using the Son of Sam mailbag as collateral.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Great episode. But the mom from that 70s show played Jerry's publicist, Kitty. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who was also in Friends.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What was she on Friends?

[Chuck Bryant]

She played Phoebe's half brother. Giovanni Ribisi played his girlfriend or wife.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is a weird, like mismatched couple.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's odd.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think they were. They got her to be a surrogate for them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

When Lisa Kudrow got pregnant in real life, I think that's how they handled it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We have watched a lot of tv.

[Chuck Bryant]

Alright, I'm gonna call this one. We were actually right in. This lady was nice at a dinner party. How's that for a subject line?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey guys, I 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. 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. And while he explained to me what kosher means and that salt also goes through the same kosher process, never 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 it feels disrespectful to correct someone on their own heritage. Good move.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 read it on the show, please give a shout out to my friend Amber who introduced me to the show. And that is from Chloe.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So wait a minute, Chuck. Were we right and the guy was wrong?

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, because it's used to make things kosher. It is not the salt itself that's kosher.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It would have kept Chloe out of that kind of situation. Chloe, it sounds like you have a lot of tact and dignity. Yes, congratulations on that.

[Chuck Bryant]

It sounds like the other guy's a.

[Jerry]

Bit of a blowhard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm not ruining the dinner party.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that is from Chloe in Sydney, Australia.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 podcastowstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the Web StuffYou Should Know.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Josh Clark]

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[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.