By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer
The best journalists are always listening and learning. So are the best publicists. The framed photo above was a gift from an intern, highlighting some of the PR lessons she learned inside MACIAS PR. Some of those quotes require context. But five of them capture how our agency thinks about public relations – an approach that separates our PR firm from others.
“You Can’t Put a Today Story in Tomorrow’s Paper.”
Timing in PR matters more than many executives understand. A great story idea can become worthless if the timing is off. Newsrooms operate on deadlines that most businesses don’t experience. When I worked in TV news, we didn’t have the luxury of saying, “That’s a great story. Let’s get around to it next week.” If the story was happening today, we needed the interviews, characters, video and information today.
Print and online reporters operate on their own deadlines, but the principle is the same. News has a shelf life.
This is one reason PR can become frustrating for companies with too many approval layers. By the time legal reviews the quote, the CEO approves the language, marketing changes three words and everyone schedules another call, the reporter may already have filed the story.
You can’t control the news cycle but you can control how prepared you are to move when it creates an opening.
“Can’t Doesn’t Exist in This Office.”
“Can’t” is about how MACIAS PR approaches a problem internally. It’s easy to say a company or idea isn’t newsworthy. It’s harder to figure out how can we make it newsworthy.
I’ve watched reporters do this throughout my career. The best journalists don’t stop when the obvious approach fails. They look for another way to tell the story. That’s a part of the mentality at MACIAS PR. “Can’t” ends the creative process. “What haven’t we tried?” keeps it going.
“You Have to Sell Your Work.”
This quote can easily be misunderstood. I’m not talking about selling a client to a journalist with marketing language. That usually works against you. I’m talking about selling the story so a reporter will care about it.
I saw this problem frequently when I was approving stories at NBC and CBS. A producer or reporter might have spent hours researching an idea, but when it came time to pitch the story internally, they couldn’t articulate what made it compelling.
If you can’t make your own editor care, how are you going to make an audience care?
The same thing happens with entrepreneurs. Founders know every feature of their product, every technical advantage and every milestone the company has achieved. Then I ask the question that matters to a journalist:
Why should anyone outside your company care? And they can’t sell it. And this isn’t about selling hype. You’re selling the significance of the idea – explaining why the information matters now.
“Information Is Not an Angle.”
Companies frequently give publicists information and assume they’ve given them a story.
We raised $20 million. That’s information. If the funding is flowing into an industry that investors abandoned two years earlier, there may be a story. This distinction was drilled into me in newsrooms long before I started MACIAS PR.
Journalists are surrounded by information. Press releases, studies, earnings reports, government reports, emails, announcements and social media feeds produce more information than any reporter could possibly cover.
Their job is to determine what’s interesting about it, and that’s where where our subtle push or angle can push it over. Information is the raw material. The angle is what gives it meaning.
“We’re All Here to Learn.”
Experience should improve your instincts. It shouldn’t close your mind. That philosophy matters inside an agency because creativity suffers when everyone is afraid to challenge the most senior person in the room, or even the founder of a company. I don’t want someone agreeing with my idea simply because my name is on the door. Likewise, I want every client, founder and entrepreneur to understand when I push them for new ideas, it’s because I’m still trying to find new angles for their brand.
If there’s a better idea, I want to hear it. Sometimes, we need to ask to learn.
What These PR Quotes Have in Common
These phrases aren’t really about media pitching. They’re about a way of thinking.
Move while the opportunity is alive. Don’t give up because the obvious route failed. Understand why your work matters. Learn to distinguish information from an actual story. And never become so experienced that you think there’s nothing left for someone else to teach you.
Those principles were shaped by my decades inside newsrooms, and they’ve continued evolving through every client and campaign we’ve worked on since. We’re all here to learn.
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If you’re preparing for a product launch, funding round or growth phase, contact MACIAS PR to learn how strategic public relations can help accelerate your business goals. You can get a customized PR quote for your business or product launch from MACIAS PR by clicking here.
About Mark Macias
Mark Macias is the founder of MACIAS PR, an earned-media public relations agency that develops media strategies and thought-leadership campaigns for companies across healthcare, technology, AI, finance and other industries. Before founding MACIAS PR in 2009, Macias worked as an Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. His newsroom experience shapes the agency’s approach to identifying newsworthy angles, developing stories and securing earned media coverage.