Phoebe: Hello Brand Journalism Community. I'm Phoebe Chongchua. Thanks for tuning in to the Brand Journalist Advantage Podcast. Here we go with the inside scoop. On today's show, Gary Schneeberger. Gary has three decades of experience in journalism and public relations. That fuels his passion for and success in strategic marketing and communications. He's the Founder and President of ROAR. He draws on his executive and executional experience in entertainment, ministry, and media to help individuals and organizations engage audiences with the boldness and creative clarity that ensures that they are heard. That is something difficult to do, right, Gary?

Gary: It is a very, very, very, very noisy marketplace of ideas out of there, Phoebe.

Phoebe: Well, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you. Gary has a whole lot of rich background in this. We've already said he comes from that journalistic mindset. That's really important, but also has the public relations side of it. He has a company called ROAR. That's perfect. You'll get a little bit more into that to tell us about that, and a book that at the time of this taping is out in 2018 called Bute the Dog: Build a PR Strategy to Make News that Matters. Brand Journalism community, it's obviously a show about how to get your story in the news. How do you make that news, and how do you make yourself relevant, not once, but over, and over, and over again? Right, Gary?

Gary: That is exactly it. If you only do it once, you're not doing it right.

Phoebe: Yeah, indeed. Indeed. It's not a PR campaign. It is something that is ongoing. This is like creating content. You don't say, “Well, am I done now?”

Gary: Yeah. That is something really that I've been working with clients. We really thrive on the get-go. You're probably not going to see a lot of placements in the first week of us working together because we've got a lot of understanding to do about who you are, what you offer, and then how do we leverage that to get the attention, first, of the media, but more importantly than that, to get through the media and to their audiences.

Phoebe: Absolutely. On this show, we kick it off with an icebreaker. This one is really fun. I want to hear this story. Gary writes that he was the first member of the general public to visit Frank Sinatra's grave. Wow. Tell me about that.

Gary: That is true. I was a reporter. Actually, I was a city editor in Palm Springs, California where Frank famously lived for the last 30 years of his life. When he passed away, they had the funeral service, the main funeral service in Los Angeles, but he is buried in a nice little cemetery in Palm Springs. Even though I was a city editor, I'm such a huge Sinatra fan that either I assigned myself or my boss has assigned me, I can't remember, to go the first day after the family had the private burial service to go there and record as fans came up to pay their respects, the first opportunity they had.
The cemetery opened at 8:00. I drove there early to make sure I didn't miss anything. As it turned out, I was driving up to the gates, and the maintenance van was going in. I pulled in behind the maintenance van, and I was there at 7:00, an hour before anybody else was let in. For a full hour, I just sat there, six feet from the chairman, and talked, and chatted, and thought of his music.
It's funny. Back in the '80s, when lip syncing was all the rage, there were bars that did lip sync contests. I, once, in a dance club that played Prince, and Madonna, and everybody, I once won a lip sync contest as Frank Sinatra. My friends took a picture of it, of course. My mom put it on one of those decorative plates you put on mantels, and I brought that with me to my assignment at Frank's grave, and I laid that on his grave. I was also the first person to leave a momentum, and hundreds or thousands of people have done at sunset but yeah.

Phoebe: Love it. That's the perks. I had a feeling it was related to your journalistic career, but kudos to you for doing that crafty stuff that the media always does, which is to sneak in behind someone else.

Gary: Yes.

Phoebe: That's right. Ask for forgiveness later.

Gary: I hope the statute of limitations has run out.

Phoebe: Yeah, right, right, right. I love it, love it. Good stuff. All right. Well, here's a quote that I'd like you to weigh in on. I think that it's really relevant to this episode. It goes like this, “Historically, PR marketing and advertising budgets are the first to be cut. However, that could be one of the first mistakes a business makes in an economic crisis at CBS Market Watch.” Your thoughts on that?

Gary: Absolutely agree. I think more and more, we're seeing people are less likely to invest in that part of their business when that is one of the most important parts of their business. The advertising budgets, those remain robust, but studies, and I have one cited in my book, are that earned media is far more valuable in advancing your programs, passions, projects, products than advertising. One study found 90% more effective it is to get someone to write about you than it is for you to publish an ad about yourself. Frankly, it is really good. Advertising is easy. You pay in money; they put it in. Earned media is hard. That's what they call it earned. If it wasn't hard, it would be called fell-from-the-sky media.

Phoebe: So true, so true. That's I'm sure all of what's you're going to help us unpack because we want to know how to get your story in the news. You, obviously, coming from a print background and even broadcast, and then myself as well know that it is tough to get in the news, but you can do it if you're crafty, if you've got a great story. Brand Journalism community, heading into that into our hot tip section, give me a success quote or a tip that's meaningful to you that you want the community to remember.

Gary: This one is really interesting because I said it. I said it in a weird context. It's “Never settle. Strive.” Ironically, I created that. I said that for the first time in my 20s to a girl I was trying to get to date. I wanted her to come with me, not with the guy she was dating. It was a selfish thing when it came out. Over the years, I have reflected on that. Even though that situation didn't work out so well, that quote has served me so well in personal and professional endeavors over the years. It's the immediate practical application to what I do now.
I see a client who, "Yeah, yeah, but a thousand people who are subscribed to your blog. That's fantastic. Celebrate it." Well, why can't we make that 10,000? In most cases, the people that we work with at ROAR are already there. They're not settling; they are striving where it comes into an issue where they don't know how to thrive. They need a little help to go beyond trying to get there to whether the techniques and strategies that can get them there. Never settle. Strive. That's the best thing I ever said for the worst reasons I ever said it.

Phoebe: Yeah. I think what goes hand-in-hand with that is to just don't become complacent and get out of your comfort zone because that's how you continue to strive. Love that quote.

Gary: Absolutely.

Phoebe: Let's talk about your past career as a journalist. We said that starting out, that lends itself, in and of itself, the credibility for showing how you can get a story in the news because you worked for some rather big publications including the Los Angeles Times. We'll back the clock just a little bit. Fill in any blanks. Then, take us to that moment in time. That one story that you would say, “I'm really proud of this. This is a career highlight.”

Gary: Yeah. I've spent, as I'm speaking here, about 15 years in journalism and 15 years in public relations. As you know, as a former journalist, they call it churning the dark side. We're Darth Vader. When we beat journalism, when we're going to public relations, we're Darth Vader. We join the Darths. I had made that switch when I worked for an organization called Focus on the Family. It's a family health ministry. It's a Christian ministry some of your listeners may be familiar with. That was when I stopped writing stories and started trying to create stories.
I mean, Focus on the Family, if you look it up, if people are aware of it, it's conservative both theologically and politically in some ways. It has very distinct positions on issues. The highlight for me of working there was I got to be, to create, and execute the publicity campaign for what is still the most talked about Super Bowl ad in the generation.

Phoebe: Wow.

Gary: That ad, if your listeners will go to their way-back machines and think about it, it was Super Bowl XLV, and it involved Tim Tebow, who, at the time, was a quarterback coming on to the University of Florida, and he was the most famous college football player at the time, maybe one of the best college football players of all time. It was his first move after not being under college eligibility rules. Focus on the Family was, it still is, a very pro-life organization. Tim Tebow and the Tebow family are very pro-life individuals. We knew some people who knew them. We got together. We came up with an ad that Tim and his mother, Pam, would appear in for this for the Super Bowl.
Now, that's an easy knot to make when you're a nonprofit ministry. That's a $3 million ad buy. We told our neighbor paper, The Denver Post, to represent the family in Colorado Springs, Colorado, we told them very simply that we had a Super Bowl ad planned. We're proud of it. We involved Tim and Pam Tebow. We didn't tell them anything other. The only description we gave of that ad for a month by design, my plan was that it was about celebrating families and celebrating life. That story got posted.

Then, some interesting things happened. People made some speculations. First, it was because Pam Tebow, Tim's mom, was in the ad, that it was going to be on the subject on some pro-life subject. Pam had been telling, in fact, on the speaking circuit a story along those lines. That element of speculation was correct.
The second element of speculation, however, was not correct. The second element of speculation was that, somehow, this was going to be a sharp-edged, political, hammer and ball pin over the head kind of pro-life statement when, in fact, it was exactly what we were saying about a mother and son who deeply and demonstrably love one another.
What erupted was a firestorm. Groups who disagreed by focused on the family on this issue started to talk things like boycott. You know as a former journalist, boycott is like catnip to a tabby when test fears boycott. Things went thermonuclear because what was being described was an advertisement that no one had seen, but everybody thought they knew what it was going to be like. It wasn't at all what the ad we had in front of us was.

Before you knew it, every ... I mean, I'm serious. It takes up a full page in my book to list just part of the news outlets who covered the story of this boycott that was coming. CBS, it was demanded that CBS not run the ad. The NFL got a protest. People were screaming. I mean, everybody. You've talked about it. All the cable shows talked about it. All the networks talked about it. Everybody was talking about it. We were just sitting back sticking to our plan of not offering any other details beyond what we were saying because what we wanted, we were not trying to be coy. We wanted a reveal.

Nowadays, it's very en vogue to show your ad a week, two weeks, three weeks beforehand. Even then, people were doing that. We wanted there to be a reveal. We were proud that we had raised money separately from our operating budget to this ad, and we wanted there to be a reveal.
Sure enough, while this was all raging, some weird things started happening. This is one of the reasons why it is my most proud moment as a professional. One, groups that couldn't have disagreed would focus on the family more on this subject of abortion rights, like NARAL Pro-Choice America. They wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying their movement could learn something from our movement. The New York Times, the Editorial Board of the Gray Lady herself said it was puzzling and dismaying that people were trying to silence us. It just kept going, and going, and going. Lo and behold, on the day that the Indianapolis Colts kicked off to the New Orleans Saints, that $3 million investment and advertising had birthed more $30 million in earned media.

Phoebe: Wow. I love this story because this is case and point how you go about doing it. Now, of course, there's a lot more to unpack in this, how it all came to be, and the money that was raised, but let's go right now to a moment when you didn't have that kind of success. You had a struggle. Share with us what that story is. Then, in our top tips section, we're going to circle back to this. I'm sure you're going to share some of the details in your top tips about how others can go about doing something similar, maybe at that level or maybe not, but, at least, getting some earned media. What's that story about when it didn't work, and what did you learn from that?

Gary: Oh boy. This is a really bad one. It was 2008. Again, Focus on the Family was run, at the time, by an individual Dr. James Dobson who, at the time, was the most influential conservative Christian in the country. You may recall in 2008, the Presidential Election, John McCain ultimately got the nomination, but among conservative evangelicals, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
Back to the elections in 2004, there were candidates that were setting us on fire. Dr. Dobson apparently spoke. He actually called up a reporter that he knew from US News and World Report. All he said, he was trying to call just to say, “Hey, congratulations on your book,” because this guy had just written a book and Focus on the Family was part of it.
Now, the reporter, being smart enough in the midst of an election cycle to have the most influential conservative Christian leader of all on the phone, asked him a question. The question was about; then, former Senator Fred Thompson coined with coming into the race. Dr. Dobson basically said, "I don't know how that would work. I don't think he's a Christian." Then, hung up the phone. Nobody told me that that had happened, and the reporter called me. I got a call from the reporter. He says, "Hey, Gary. What did Dr. Dobson mean when he said that Fred Thompson is not a Christian?"

This, I'm going to read you two paragraphs from the actual story that was in US News and World Report. “In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman, Gary Schneeberger, who stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless ‘has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian, someone who speaks openly about his faith.'” Here is the best part. This is me quoted again. “‘We use that word, Christian, to refer to people who are evangelical Christians,' Schneeberger added. Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy.”
What I did, first of all, wrong, was I defined Christian so narrowly and stupidly that I left a lot of people out of the family of God, including Catholics. The most important thing I did wrong is I spoke when I should have paused. I did not know anything about this. This was the first I heard that this was even said. I didn't even know if it was really said. I should have said, “Dan,” who is the reporter, “that's a great question. Let me go talk to Dr. Dobson and get back to you.”
One of the things that we preach over and over again to our clients at ROAR is you have to be prepared. That's one of the reasons why you can't jump out of the gate with a campaign. Why? As I'm going to talk about here in a minute, you have to build an infrastructure. You have to be prepared. It's like the Boy Scout motto; it's a good motto with a PR as well, be prepared. If you're not, be quiet until you are prepared.

Phoebe: That's right. We've seen this time and time again. In fact, one of the episodes that we did, Brand Journalism community, was after the United Airlines fiasco. They jumped right in and started saying all kinds of things that later, they retracted and actually had to apologize for because social media went crazy. The people flying and start talking about boycotts. I mean, it can die down obviously. It seems to have died down now, but it was really damning when they just react.
Of course, I'm speaking about when the passenger was dragged from the plane for reasons that just were absolutely absurd. I'll put a link to that in the show notes, Brand Journalism community, so you can listen to that episode because even though that's long gone in the world of time, and media, and business, it's still very relevant what you can take away from that. I think that's what you're talking about here.

Gary: Those things still happen today. I mean, the truth of the matter is if you're someone who the press is going to interview, when you step in front of a microphone, when you step in front of the melt book, you are sometimes going to say something you wish you hadn't said, or you wish you said in a different way.
One of the chapters in my book is I actually devote an entire chapter to it called Bad Word that is Spelled Out with Symbols is Survivable because you can survive in a lot of ways to mitigate crisis and to mitigate bubbles, mangles, and misdeeds as I call them. Again, that infrastructure becomes very handy in how you respond to those kinds of situations as well.

Phoebe: Well, let's dive into how we earn media, how we get that earned media by getting our story in the news, and not just once, but keeping it there. Then, making it re-relevant. Take us through your five-step process.

Gary: Yeah. It starts out, first thing, you have to know who you are. The second thing, then, is you have to know who they are. By they, I mean the media. Third step is you have to build that infrastructure that we've been talking about really. Fourth one, a phrase I like to use, then you're ready to do this. You're ready to commit loops. The last one there is to, then, commit it over and over again. To be ... A word I just made up as I was writing my book because I'm like, “I'm at the keyboard. I can make this up.” Be re-relevant is the fifth one. Once you do it once, do it again, and again, and again. That's how you're going to get the bigger platform for this.

Phoebe: Well, there's some great information here. Know who you are, I like, of course. Know who they are. I want you to just briefly touch on that because I think this is where a lot of people, at least, from my career in journalism, I was like, “Do you even understand what kinds of stories this publication covers?” Usually ... I can't say usually, but a lot of times, brands make that mistake. Take us into that one. Then, I've got some questions about the other ones as well.

Gary: Yeah. The essence, first, of know who they are and by a couple of the stories I've told, I have worked for conservative organizations. We all know, and I have some studies in the book about the ideological, political leanings of reporters. I think four out of five are liberal democrat, not conservative Republican. Fine. Here's the difference though. So many people think the media is all bias. They're all horrible. My line to everybody is, somewhere between best friends forever and spawns of Satan is where most journalists are going to fall.

You and I, we're both journalists. We have opinions, sure. We have strong views, sure. We also, while we realize we can't really be objective because we have opinions, we do know that we have to be. Because of those strong beliefs, when we're reporting a new story, we bring fairness through the table. We may not agree with the people we're writing about, but that doesn't mean that we treat them with any less respect, or we treat them with any less regard in the context of our story.
If there's one thing that people misunderstand about the press is that they're all liberal, or they're all at Fox and is conservative. No. I believe the people who report the news are generally fair. Sean Hannity is not fair, Rachel Maddow is not fair, but they don't get paid to be fair. They get paid to have opinions. You have to know that-

Phoebe: That's more of a stick is what I like to call it.

Gary: Right. You have to know the difference between commentators and reporters. That's sort of step one is recognizing who they are. They're also not there to make you look good. Reporters are there to get the story. The worse thing that could ever happen is for you to get a story or for a client to get a story and go, “Wow, I could have written this better myself.” That can lead to being a little, “Wow, I'm so good. I don't have to study. I don't have to be prepared. I can be like I was when I talk to that reporter from US News and World Report.”
You've got to be able to sort of work within those parameters and recognize that the reporter's job is to get the story. You want to provide a story, but you don't want to allow yourself into thinking that your job is to make you look good. That's not their job. You're right. You hit on a point if I could just go a second.

Phoebe: Sure.

Gary: You hit on a point that you've also got to understand who you're pitching your message to. What kind of stories do these publications do? Beyond that, it's a general mass; it covers everything. Find those editors and those reporters and build relationships with them who are covering the kind of stuff that's in your wheelhouse of expertise. If you don't do that, you're not going to get any calls returned or any email with that.

Phoebe: That's right. So true. Of course, Brand Journalism community, I often talk about piggyback journalism, which is find that trending story that the publication is always running. Then, try to have a sidebar story where you actually piggyback on it, and you're covering a different angle of it, but you're pitching up something new. Really important to try that. I'll put an episode where we talked about that in the show link as well. Let's talk a little bit about PR infrastructure. What are we talking about here? How do you create that?

Gary: It, really, is beginning with identify. Once you have what it is that you do, one of the first things I do when I on-ramp a new client, you go through value proposition exercise, so I can find out what it is about them that we can put out there to the press that addresses real needs for real people that establishes their cultural and marketplace relevance. It's how do they offer specific advantages, concrete, specific advantages pinpointing tangible value. Then, how do they deliver those first two things with expertise and authority that spotlights what makes them unique.

Then, you have to ... You just said something about piggyback journalism. Well, how do you find out about that? You have to be aware. You have to be well-read, well-listened, and well-watched. You have to know what's going on in the news, what's going on in the culture, what the trends are that these papers are reporting, or these podcasts are covering, that these radio stations are talking about. What are people saying? What's going on in what I'd like to call the mediasphere? Then, how can you take what we get at step one, that know who you are, how can you take who you are and plug that into how you commit news? How can you make those things happen?
The infrastructure is having the ability to assess what's out there, having somebody. I think this is ... This is not just me trying to get people to hire me as a consultant. I think one of the biggest mistake folks can make is trying to do PR on their own, going to your point about cutting budgets. The journalist can reach you directly, and you're someone who they want to interview. That's not a good situation. It's better to have someone you can bounce ideas off of. It's better to have someone who can help you shape your message, not put words in your mouth, not have you parrot things down in your heart, but help you put your best rhetorical foot forward when you're doing that.
That's really part of the infrastructure. I have a whole chapter on it in the book about being coached. I became a journalist because I was coached. My degree was in English. I had some mentors in the newsroom that coached me in the newsroom like a bug. I followed the mentors, a child in the house.

Phoebe: Yeah, everybody needs this. This can't be emphasized enough. I mean, one of my just favorite people to talk about is, of course, Steve Jobs. He practiced a lot for any time there was a presentation, a product unveiling. The point is he was rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. It would come off, then, next to flawless.
That's important to practice when you're going to be interviewed as well because if you get your dialogue and your comments all mumble jumbled, the reporter's going to get lost in it. They're either going to cut you completely from the story, or they're going to put something in that's maybe taken out of context, not something that they're doing maliciously, but they're trying to make sense of what you're saying. A lot of times, CEOs, people who are the spokesperson just go on and on too long, and it's not going to be quoted, and they'll get left from the story.

Gary: Yeah. I always advise clients, if we go and say one thing, what's the most important thing you want to get out, the one point you want to make, and then write it down. Write it down in 25 words, write it down in 10 words, write it down in five words because you may be able to say it in five words; you don't know, especially you're being interviewed by a newscast where they're going to edit you into the piece. I mean, I've done that, and they talked to me for 45 minutes, and they used three seconds of the sound bite, five words. You have to know what's your message is. That's part of the infrastructure is having the time and having the expertise to help you shape that message in a way that you're going to make sure that you control the introduced agenda, not the reporter.

Phoebe: I think we've sort of touched on this, but in the essence of time, just quickly tell us about being re-relevant. How do you do that?

Gary: Yeah. I actually created it. It's funny. I like to tell people I'm still bad at math. When I graduated in college for my last math class, I had to take an Algebra class; I set the book on fire because it was just so ... I'm not a numbers guy. I did create it. I'm not a science guy, but I did create for my book a formula for what I think relevance is. That's this. Identity, plus strategy, plus opportunity, times achievement, raised to the power of resilience equals relevance.

Take that and repeat that over and over again. That's where you're going to be able to continue to stay relevant, continue to commit news, continue to do things, continue to make stories by default, and that's part of the infrastructure. When the infrastructure is in place, you can drive on the same road to get to work every day for 20 years; you can use that same infrastructure, those same systems, those same things of awareness to help you know what's going on in the news. You can leverage those expectations and opportunities to makes news that matter.

Phoebe: Good stuff. Brand Journalism community, the five-step process will be at thinklikeajournalist.com under Gary's show notes. You can take a look at it there. You'll also see how you can reach out to him and pick up a copy of his book, but it's time now. Gary, you've been hired to help an ailing company. It's about to financially collapse and its reputation shut. You have a month, a $1000 budget, a smartphone, and a laptop. How do you begin to turn this company around?

Gary: Disclaimer, but not knowing exactly what they do, it's hard to specific, but I'll say this. No matter who they are, they need to upset expectations. I have a client right now, a restaurant, a kid's restaurant, open for two years, has not turned a profit in a single month.
Most owners of restaurants like that would go hide in the bushes and not let anybody know. This owner, we worked out a gorilla tactic where he has a radio show every day of the week. We go on every Thursday for an hour and talk really openly about how this place is dying. We're going to put a countdown clock on the website that says, "This is going to say in November 2018 unless you save it." We're going to send guys out on the street during the radio show to stop people who may be walking into other restaurants to come in and try ours out.

That will attract over time. We believe the interest of media, the interest of people who hear it will go, “Wait a minute. These guys are pretty honest and weird. Who does that? I want to go check this out.” It will build word of mouth that will be helpful. In all cases, I would say find out what the expectations are, and then upset them.

Phoebe: Well, that's really interesting because it reminds me. I think the documentary is called Typewriter. I don't know if you've seen it. I'll find the trailer, Brand Journalism community, and put in the show notes. It's fabulous. Tom Hanks is in it. It's about a typewriter, believe it or not, repair company somewhere in I want to say near Los Angeles.
Let's think about this. Typewriters in this day and age, but there are people who are fans of them. Tom Hanks is one of them. The documentary is about the turnaround of saving this typewriter company so that people can have a place to go to get their typewriters repaired. I started out on a typewriter way back when, and I still have mine now. I can't say that I'd commit to using it regularly. It just doesn't make sense for me. There's this whole community and culture that loves it.

This business is now ... I don't know if I'd say it's thriving, but the whole documentary is about how the turnaround, like what you guys are doing by saying they were going out of business, they were suffering so much, but these people had such passion for cleaning up and fixing typewriters that this whole documentary came about. Then, of course, you get somebody like Tom Hanks in it. I mean, you can see what happens. Pretty cool. What is one piece of technology, video, multimedia equipment, or an app that you just can't leave without?

Gary: Okay. It's really funny that you just told the story about typewriters because my thing is a great tech. It's actually the planner I use. It's called the Self-Planner by a company called the BestSelf Company. What I love about it, I'm going analog when it comes to taking notes. I like to write things out with pens. This is great because, not only it does your 8:00 to 5:00, but it also has things for what are your top three targets. By the way, you are number one today. It has lessons learned, things that you could have done better.
It has a place for in the morning, you're grateful for what three things? In the evening, you're grateful for what three things? It has long-term goals that you plan over three months. You, then, plan a celebration, get yourself a big screen TV, or whatever goal you want when you're done. I've always struggled because I'm a 30,000-foot, inquiry-strategic guy. I've always struggled with staying organized. This thing I discovered about a year ago, this Self Journal, it's called, is a planner, part journal, and revolutionary for me.

Phoebe: One book, documentary, blog, podcast, or internet channel that you'd like to recommend?

Gary: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. You may have heard of it or seen it. It was on HBO. What's great about that documentary is that it was like a Watergate documentary in the sense that it actually changed something. It solved a crime, or it got us closer to solving the crime. It wasn't done by a journalist. It was done by a filmmaker named Robert Jarecki.
What was great about it, in addition, he did something that Woodward and Bernstein couldn't do in covering the Watergate, and involved the presidents, and managed that he made the villain sympathetic at times. Not that he liked him, not that he ever rooted for him, but he felt sympathetic for him sometimes. Also, from a PR perspective, this guy that kept sitting down, this Robert Durst guy kept sitting down with him to do interviews. I kept, as a PR guy, going, "What are you doing? Stop. Why? What's your plan? What's your goal?" I'm going, "Here's agenda rule. What's your agenda?" That worked for me both as a ... I was riveted as a viewer, and I was screaming at the TV as a PR executive.

Phoebe: The year is 2025, let's get a look at expert predictions from your vantage point, the world of public relations. What do you think things are going to be like? What I like to say is EC=MC, every company equals a media company. With this happening, the changes, the structure of PR, in a way, sometimes for good, sometimes not so good because as we talked about earlier, brands think, "I can just say whatever I want. It's going to get written up this way." Maybe they get luck through earned media one time. Then, the next five more times after that, they get pummeled. Give us a look and leave us with some competitive advice for building a competitive advantage.

Gary: I think by 2025, even before then, we'll see a further flattening of the mediasphere. One of the things I wrote in my book, and you're a good example of it, is that some of the most influential media outlets, now or not, corporations in Los Angeles and New York are run out of people's studio apartments in some cases. I think we'll see more of that flattening.
One of the most interesting things that's happening right now is we're talking, in our culture, are the students at that school in Florida that the most recent shooting took place, and they're speaking out, and they're talking. They're demanding change. Right now, they're using the old traditional news media to do that. I think we're going to see them, younger people, have a voice, have outlets to do that, which is not just going to be photos on Instagram. It's going to be things that are a little bit more subsequent.
I think this is a turning point for us where even younger generations are leaving more people to realize the power to affect change through the media, through the technology that's available to us. That's going to mean I'm excited about it as a PR guy because that means I have more outlets where I can place my clients' information.

Phoebe: Precisely. I love that outlook. Gary, it's been a lot of fun. You've shared some valuable information. Thank you so much for being on the Brand Journalist Advantage.

Gary: Thank you so much for having me, Phoebe. Have a great day.