5 PR Lessons Heard Inside MACIAS PR

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Mark Macias

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.

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How to Follow Up With Reporters Without Hurting Your PR Strategy

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

When I was an Executive Producer with NBC in New York, I was the boss. I helped determine which stories we pursued, but that didn’t mean I walked around the newsroom telling experienced journalists exactly how to report their stories. That would have been a fast way to damage the creative process—and probably my relationship with the people producing the journalism.

Good journalists are independent thinkers. They want to investigate, ask their own questions and reach their own conclusions. You can give them direction. You can point out what they’re missing, and sometimes challenge them to look deeper. But there’s a difference between guiding a journalist and telling a journalist what to do.

That distinction is just as important in public relations, especially if you’re a CEO who typically tells others what to do. Persistence is necessary in PR. Aggression is different. And when you’re dealing with journalists, your approach can be just as important as your strategy.

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How Startups Can Get Media Attention: You Don’t Have to Be the Biggest Dog

Posted on September 18, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

The little dog in this photo is Einstein. He’s my dog, and despite his size, he has never had much trouble getting attention.

There’s a lesson here for startups trying to compete for media coverage against much larger companies: You don’t have to be the biggest dog to get attention. You just need to give people a reason to notice you.

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Why Creativity and Emotion Matter in PR

Posted on September 17, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

Walk into almost any industry and you’ll see the same problem. Companies describe themselves with similar words and repeat similar talking points. From the outside, they blur together. That’s why I believe emotion, ideas and individuality are some of the most important ingredients in public relations. These three elements influence how people experience a story, and ultimately whether they remember the company or person behind it.

Andy Warhol demonstrated this principle in a completely different medium. A can of soup is one of the most ordinary objects imaginable. Millions of people walk past Campbell’s soup cans in grocery stores without giving them a second thought. Warhol didn’t invent the soup can or change what was inside it. He changed the context and, in doing so, made people look at something familiar in an entirely different way.

Great public relations can accomplish something similar. The raw material might be a company, an executive, proprietary data, a customer experience or an idea. Creativity doesn’t require changing the facts. It requires recognizing the unexpected, emotional or individual element within those facts that can make another person see them differently.

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Why Reporters Miss Calls & Forget Meetings – PR Perspective

Posted on September 7, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

It’s a familiar pattern among many reporters: They forget meetings, miss scheduled calls and sometimes take days to send a video link for an interview. It might look unprofessional to the outsider or client, but this doesn’t mean reporters have lost interest in the story.

After working inside newsrooms at NBC and CBS, I can tell you there is usually a better explanation: journalists are overworked and juggling multiple stories, interviews and deadlines at the same time. In an industry where time is measured by minutes, your interview that is next week takes a lower priority in their mind.

Understanding that perspective is more important to PR than most companies realize.

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Why Scrappy PR Agencies Often Find Better Media Opportunities

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

PR and media campaigns rarely unfold exactly as planned.

A reporter who expressed interest can get pulled into breaking news. A product launch that appears important internally may not generate enough news value for a national publication. An editor may like the subject but reject the original angle. Sometimes a company simply doesn’t have an obvious announcement to pitch.

These situations are where PR strategy, creativity and experience become important.

At MACIAS PR, we describe this approach as being scrappy. That doesn’t mean cutting corners or sending more pitches. In public relations, being scrappy means understanding the objective, recognizing when an approach isn’t working and finding another credible route to media coverage.

My experience as an Executive Producer with NBC taught me that journalists aren’t evaluating how much work went into a PR campaign. They are evaluating the story in front of them. Does it reveal something new? Is it timely? Does it affect their audience? Is there credible evidence supporting it?

Successful media relations requires answering those questions—even when the original PR plan doesn’t.

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Who Really Controls Your Media Story? Inside the PR Ecosystem

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

Every company wants to be the one getting all the attention.

The CEO wants the interview. Investors want to see the company in respected business publications. Marketing wants the exposure. Competitors notice when another brand suddenly seems to be everywhere.

But there is an entire ecosystem between wanting media coverage and actually getting it.

The image accompanying this article is playful, but the hierarchy behind it is real. The client may be at the center of the story, but reporters decide whether to pursue it. Editors and producers determine whether it makes the cut. Audiences ultimately decide whether it matters. And competitors are always watching to see who is winning the conversation.

Before founding MACIAS PR, I worked inside this ecosystem as an Executive Producer with NBC and later at CBS. I reviewed and approved story ideas, worked with reporters and producers, and saw firsthand why some pitches moved forward while hundreds of others disappeared.

Understanding those different players—and what each of them needs—is one of the most important lessons in public relations.

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What Journalists Actually Look For in a Startup Story

Posted on July 17, 2026 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

“How do I get reporters interested in my company?”

It’s a popular question from all startups. Our conversation usually begins around a product launch, funding announcement or new partnership. These milestones are exciting for founders, but journalists rarely care about those topics.

Before founding MACIAS PR, I spent years approving story ideas as Executive Producer with NBC and CBS. Every day, we evaluated hundreds of pitches competing for a limited number of broadcast segments. The overwhelming majority never made it to air—not because the companies lacked innovation, but because they lacked a compelling story.

Understanding how journalists evaluate news is one of the biggest advantages a startup can have. Once founders begin thinking like reporters instead of marketers, media coverage becomes much more attainable.

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The Media Is Changing — And It’s Making PR Harder Than Ever

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

🧭 The Media Landscape Has Changed — Fast

The media is changing quickly, and it’s having a direct impact on how your stories get covered. I’ve watched this evolution closely over the past two years as my agency has run media campaigns across tech, healthcare, AI, and finance.

But lately, the pressure inside newsrooms feels heavier than ever. Journalists aren’t just busy — they’re overwhelmed.

🗞️ What I’m Hearing From Inside the Newsroom

Throughout summer 2025, I spoke with producers, reporters, and Executive Producers from Newsmax, CNN, PIX11, New York Post, News 12 Brooklyn, CNBC, LA Times, San Francisco Standard, and the Washington Post.

It’s a diverse mix of media outlets, yet the same message came up in every conversation:

“We’re overloaded. We’re all doing more with less.”

Even my former colleagues — many of whom now run newsrooms — described burnout and confusion as priorities shifted daily. Several missed scheduled calls with clients, not from neglect, but because stories were falling through the cracks.

📉 Why This Matters: Hard News Wins, Soft News Loses

The rules of engagement have changed:

Hard news is in; soft news is out.
Complicated stories struggle; simple, visual stories get greenlit.
In-depth features are shelved; one-day turnarounds get priority.

Need proof? One of our clients was approved for a TV morning show segment — confirmed by the Executive Producer herself. But the day before the live appearance, she called to apologize: the segment was double-booked. They simply didn’t have enough people to handle the schedule.

That’s the new normal. Even approved stories can fall apart in the chaos.

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🎯 Why the Best PR Stories Aren’t Pitched Where You Think They Belong

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Mark Macias

By Mark Macias
Founder of MACIAS PR | Former NBC Executive Producer

When I wrote the book, Tao of PR, I wanted to strip away the mythology around the media and show how real stories are born—and sold—inside the newsroom.

The insider truth? One size does not fit all when it comes to getting a journalist’s attention. If you want to win the PR war, you have to typically stop thinking like a publicist—and start thinking like an editor.

The Danger of the Obvious Pitch

Too many publicists take the safe, predictable path. They pitch the fashion section for a clothing designer, or the sports desk for a high school football coach. And when their emails are ignored, they frequently blame the media.

But the real problem is the pitch. Safe pitches are forgettable pitches.

The most successful campaigns I’ve led didn’t land in the section you’d expect. They broke the pattern. They forced the reporter to stop and say, “I’ve never heard this story told this way before.”

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