February 19, 2024 • 35 mins
Journalists and public relations professionals take us on a journey when they tell a story. To be a good storyteller across the media, you have to be able to get close and convey that. In doing so, you’ll connect with the reader in a memorable way.
In this episode, we welcomed our friend Tom Zuppa, PR Practitioner from John Guilfoil Public Relations and former Managing Editor for The Sun of Lowell. After an attention-grabbing story he shared (that you’ll want to get lost in), he shared his expertise in storytelling, both as a journalist and in public relations. Curiosity is # 1 as a journalist and effective communications are key. PR is about reputation management and brand awareness so convey the impact and results.
Storytelling across the media may not always be easy, but when you focus on character, dramatic arc, and a sense of place, you can make your stories truly transportive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
(00:04):
at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
Three firefighters from the rescue squad arrived at 15 Hurd Street for admission yesterday
morning.
It was all new to Lieutenant Charles Stamp and firefighters Dave Mayer and John Duby.
Safe crackers are usually on the other side of the law.
(00:25):
Police detectives usually handle mysteries.
A small cooperative bank had a riddle to solve in the basement.
What was in the stubborn safe that wouldn't open?
Stacks of cash?
A trove of coins?
Or perhaps this is a reprise of Geraldo Rivera's April 21, 1986 live TV broadcast of the opening
of Al Capone's vault.
(00:46):
Breathless Geraldo and his crew broke through a 7,000 pound concrete wall at Chicago's
Lexington Hall that night and found nothing.
Yesterday, 55 minutes after they began, the firefighters cracked open the door.
With one final pry, Stamp set the heavy door crashing to the basement floor.
You could feel it land.
A whiff of a must coursed through the room.
(01:07):
The mystery was solved.
Everyone smiled.
The locksmith and his son videotaped it.
The bank president watched.
Walter Baylis, a bank director, looked on with particular glee.
The safe door emblazoned the Muller-Sloos safe company Boston stared back at them.
The building opened in 1948 and three banks called it home.
(01:29):
The Vilsex Cooperative Bank, the first federal savings in the loan, and Butler Bank.
Lowell Police used it as a domestic computer center for five years.
Honor Louis Sob sold the building to Lowell Cooperative.
The bank wants to renovate, but first there was a question of three vaults.
The others on the first floor in the basement had opened without a hitch.
(01:49):
Carmen Jecnavorian, owner of Post Office Lock and Key, opened them with the combinations,
swinging the 18-inch thick steel doorstep to reveal some shelves, empty cabinets, and
a few two-shaped fluorescent vaults.
The third vault would not yield.
We don't need these vaults, said Richard Cough from the bank president.
(02:10):
We'll trash this one, but we'll keep the other two.
Baylis brought in the firefighters.
These guys trained with the jaws of life he'd figured.
If someone had become trapped in a bank vault, how would they get out?
Jecnavorian briefed the fire crew.
Bolts retracted, handle broken, maybe locked inside at the top.
This could be quite no deal, the locksmith said.
(02:31):
We've never done anything like this before, Stamps said.
They brought an air chisel, a hydraulic ram, a K-12 saw, various wrenches, a hydraulic door
spreader.
They decided to peel away the steel frame on the top of the sides.
Within a minute, pop.
The rim separates from the wall.
Stamp works up the right side, the trims squealing, popping and cracking as the metal bends like
(02:54):
taffy.
The safes have come a long way, says Jecnavorian, a lock history buff of sorts.
In India, he says, the emperor used to take his valuables and seal them in a large block
of wood than submerged in a pool.
And they had crocodiles in there on strict food rations, so they were always hungry.
When they wanted the valuables, they'd either drug the crocs or kill them.
(03:16):
Stamp cranks the hydraulic tool.
We can peel away the top here, Mayor says.
Pop it off and fold it down.
Then another loud pop.
Good one, Mayor says.
Duby leaves to gather more tools.
With a wrench, Duby removes the six bolts that hold the door to the frame.
It takes four minutes.
Or in, he says.
(03:37):
He's joking.
He tries to peel off the outer casing with a crowbar.
It rejects his efforts with a sproing.
It must be a quick ray in.
Someone mentions calling a welder.
A firefighter's dragging an air compressor, hoses and saw attachments.
They can't get enough air pressure.
A bead of sweat falls from muscular Duby's shaved head.
He grabs the hydraulic tool, heads back to the door, and pumps the instrument doing the
(04:01):
work for it.
He works up to the left side.
Pop.
18 inches higher.
Pop.
Six inches above that.
Pop.
He tears out the frame with a suspended ceiling over his head.
And inserts the hydraulic tool.
Crackle.
Pop.
The frame just splits under the pressure.
The stamp pulls it half down.
The other half is wedged off.
(04:24):
Stamp picks up the halogen, a long thin steel tool, and swings it with the end of the curved
spike at the wall along the vault tool.
As he slams, plaster flies.
On one swing, the spike wedges between the steel door and the frame.
The door budges, then recedes.
It hits the spot again.
It budges more.
Everyone sees it this time.
(04:44):
Whoa, whoa, I think we've got it, Mayor Shouts.
Ready?
Stamp prides the door and opens a bit.
Everybody takes a step back.
Stamp prides hard.
It flops like a steel wheel forward and onto the ground.
A funky smell waths through the room.
Mayor heads inside the vault with a spotlight.
(05:05):
Look at the money!
More humor.
He finds wood shelves, boldly carpet rolls, and old desk.
The bankers box is filled with vintage accounting equipment and finger dial phones.
Its document, Vault Chief Knoborian says, probably last opened in the 1980s.
No rivetches.
On the backside of the door, a warning is handwritten.
(05:26):
Do not close the door.
Hello, my name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
(05:47):
I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Marcom and Project Management firm headquartered on
the east coast of the US in quaint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
I'm your host and passionate about storytelling, and I'm actually on a mission to raise up
the next generation of storytellers.
We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
(06:08):
The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
One step, one starfish, or one story at a time.
Every episode, we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
and connect with you.
Then we break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their own
(06:31):
stories.
So thanks for tuning in.
Now let's get started.
Today's episode is about PR and journalism, storytelling across the media.
With me today is Tom Zupa, senior account executive from John Guilfoyle Public Relations
and former managing editor for the Sun of Lowell.
I am so excited that you are here.
(06:52):
I am so happy we get to talk shop.
So thank you and welcome.
Thank you, Lana.
I really appreciate the invitation.
You're welcome.
I'm glad you're here.
So we would love to hear you introduce yourself.
You just shared this amazing story with us, but please tell our listeners who are you.
So my name is Tom Zupa and as you said, I work at John Guilfoyle Public Relations.
(07:14):
I had a very long career in journalism at a number of stops.
The last stop was in Lowell at the Sun and that's sort of how we met one another years
ago.
And a few years back, you know, local journalism started not being what it once was.
And I was one of the many people who all of a sudden found themselves in search of another
(07:34):
job.
So considered a lot of options and just kind of found this wonderful new home at John Guilfoyle
Public Relations.
John is a former journalist.
We have a lot of former journalists on staff.
We work almost primarily with municipal government.
So town schools, police, fire, and we're sort of that extra hand when they need it.
(07:58):
So if it's internal communications, external communications, crisis management, we just
sort of that extra hand somebody to talk to, somebody to consult with.
John started the company 10 years ago himself and five clients.
And we now have about 300 clients.
We work in 11 states.
We have a video division and a web marketing division and a spin off training academy to
(08:25):
train communicators.
So it's been a wonderful change of pace.
It is wonderful working in a growth industry.
Nice.
Nice.
And that's really good to hear as far as public relations is concerned, you know, and
you know, kudos to your boss for launching and growing the way he has.
(08:47):
So good for him.
So I really loved the story.
You know, I think we typically have folks come in and share personal stories.
We've only had a few people come in and share an actual story.
So where did you, you said that was one of your favorite stories.
(09:08):
Like how, where did you hear that story?
Or how long have you known that story?
So this is actually a story from the son, one of my former colleagues, Dave Perry, who
was probably one of the three best storytellers I've ever worked with in my career.
Dave just had a way with words.
And we got one of that story that day and he decided to go out and let me check this
(09:31):
out and see what it was.
And just Dave had all the right words on that day.
I love the story so much because it uses so much of storytelling.
You know, it's, I always tell people, you don't write with your pen, you write with
your eyes and your ears and all of your senses.
So in that story clip, you get, you get the smell of the room.
(09:53):
You get the feel of, of the door striking the ground.
You get the intensity.
You sort of have a sense of place.
And when you're able to pull all those things together as a storyteller, the reader gets
a little bit transported.
You sort of, you can forget time.
You know, all of a sudden it's five minutes where you're not thinking about your job or
(10:13):
what's coming up for dinner that evening or errands you have to run.
You sort of, it takes you out of that, that your regular life.
And to me, those were always the most refreshing stories to read.
I mean, that's one of many, many narrative stories I've read of you, but that continues
to be one of my favorites because it does bring all the elements together.
And I mean, you really did take us on a journey.
(10:36):
You know, I could feel myself really concentrating when you were telling the story because I
was like, what's going to happen next?
You know, and there was such a buildup of, you know, going through the layers of the
vaults and, you know, the sounds.
And so it was very well told, but you know, you're a storyteller.
Well, not my words though.
(10:57):
Those are Dave's words.
No, no, no, I understand that.
But I think, I think you come from a background of being a storyteller.
And I think when you are a storyteller, you know how to tell a story.
You know, we both come from a background in journalism and PR.
My graduate degree is in PR.
And so I was, I was reading up on it and, you know, storytelling, journalism is storytelling
(11:24):
with a purpose.
You know, there's a purpose for when you're telling a story.
And you know, it's on the journalists to verify, collect information and then present
it in a way that is going to make for a good story.
And you know, journalists really are those who are the eyes and ears for the situations
and circumstances, the issues that we all face.
(11:45):
And they present it in a way that really helps everybody be able to understand it.
And PR, you know, public relations, you know, you're meant to create this really relevant
narrative and you're trying to get that emotional response from the audience.
And in essence, trying to get them to act.
So you know, I, you know, I think there's, there's such a, there's such a need today
(12:11):
for really good storytelling.
And I mean, I know from on the corporate level, you know, they're big companies now are dedicating
just entire web pages just to their stories, whether they're news stories, whether they're
employee stories, whether they're customer stories, because stories sell.
(12:32):
I mean, you know, that's, it's how you really get to know, you know, as, as the audience,
it's really how you get to know the storytellers.
And I think another very important thing for storytellers is you have to be able to get
close.
Okay.
Dave was in the room that day.
That's how he told that story.
If you're writing for a client, it's important that you, you're able to connect that client
(12:59):
to the consumer or the reader so that they, they have that understanding.
If you are vague, if you're not using clear language, if you are scattered in your writing,
it doesn't deliver as well.
You can, piano writing is, is much different than journalism.
It uses a lot of the same skills.
I, I use so much of, of my, my journalism experience on my job because I'm writing and
(13:24):
reporting every day and, and thinking and planning as well.
So the writing can be a little more limited at times, but it's still, you know, I try
to be a little creative when I can be.
We're serving different audiences.
The journalist serves the reader and while we may be serving our clients, sometimes it's
(13:49):
how you serve your clients and having them understand that clear communications and effective
communications is really how you want to, want to, you know, engage with the community.
I mean, PR is, is a slow game.
It really is, you know, it's one step at a time, you know, a marketing is buy this,
(14:10):
buy this right now and then two weeks later, we're going to sell you something else.
PR is, is about reputation management and brand awareness and no one press release
ever changes that.
It's an ongoing part of the puzzle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(14:31):
And I found it as a comms manager, you know, it's, it's sort of the breadcrumbs, you know,
that gets you to where you want to go, you know, and having a client or an employer,
if you work for an employer who understands that it is tied to brand awareness and that
(14:51):
it is a slow process and that they're, they're in for the long haul.
I think is key to making the work that you do as a PR practitioner and professional,
most successful.
Right.
Right.
And what we, we advise clients, we tell them this is, this is a long effort.
(15:12):
If you have been damaged reputationally, it is a very long way to get back.
And you know, for example, if you have a client who has had a crisis that needs to be addressed
immediately, it's not going to be fixed the next day.
It's going to be fixed over the course of weeks and months.
And that good PR and consistent PR positions you as being successful.
(15:38):
And I always try to tell clients, you want the bad thing to be the exception and not
the rule.
You want to have a long stretch of really good positive views so that when a bad thing
happens and it always happens, the bad thing is now, oh, well, geez, they're really your
organization.
They know what they're doing.
(15:59):
This is an exception as opposed to, oh my God, not that.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And that sort of acceptance of you, we all make mistakes and right.
And that, you know, having really good PR helps you sort of come out on the other side.
And honestly, in crises, some clients don't understand that at first.
(16:19):
You know, they're in, they're in the hole.
They're, they're really worried about next steps and like, no, take responsibility.
You know, taking responsibility shows leadership.
Yeah.
Promise how you're going to fix something.
Yeah.
And fix it.
And, and it's, it is an ongoing process and it's, it's not something everyone in a crisis
(16:42):
grasps initially, but it is, it mitigates long-term reputational damage.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't just blow over.
You know, I had a situation as a, as a comms professional that there was somebody who
was already on a team that, you know, publicly lied and was sued and it impacted the organization.
(17:09):
And, you know, it, it took a lot of having a solid and they didn't have a crisis.
You mean like they didn't have a crisis protocol.
Like they didn't have a crisis protocol.
So we needed to craft that, develop that and then put that into practice.
And, you know, it took a long time, many years actually to come out on the other side fully.
(17:36):
And when I say that, I don't mean like it was just years of this difficult thing.
I mean, it was, you know, progressively got better, but, but like you said, it wasn't
like a, it didn't happen overnight.
And I think this is perhaps where we have a little bit of an advantage over someone who's
purely a PR practitioner because we've been on the other side of the fence.
(17:56):
Yep.
And we've asked the tough questions and we know we can anticipate journalist questions
and community reaction or stakeholder reaction.
Yes.
So, you know, to be able to tell a client, no, this is what's going to happen.
These are the questions you're going to have.
These are the questions you've got to be prepared to answer, you know, and this is going to be
your fallout.
(18:17):
It's extremely valuable.
Yep.
And to think that you could dodge the, the press was, you know, that was sort of an,
like, it was like an awakening for them, you know, it was like, you're not going to.
So let's have a plan on how we're going to engage with them and communicate with them
because they're going to want to know.
(18:39):
And it is extremely difficult for a leader in that situation to stand up and take the
fire.
But that's really a piece of leadership.
And, and hard because if it's somebody on your team, you know, just by default, by the
being the leader, it's your fault too.
Right.
You do have to stand up and take that.
(19:01):
So, so you, you have been in PR now a few years, but you had a long career in journalism.
You told us a little bit about why the, why the move.
So what are your, what are you mostly doing these days with, with your comms work?
I mean, are you doing primarily crisis comms or are you doing everything or?
(19:23):
Well, and that's one of the joy, we're a mid-sized agency.
We have 17 full-time employees.
So we become experts on a lot of things very quickly.
So my day can be anything from writing press releases to client outreach to managing a crisis.
I have a sales component.
(19:44):
I never thought I'd be involved in sales, but here I am.
And it, some of it's long-term planning, some of it's campaign planning.
You know, if we've had a lot of success with communities that are trying to build a new
town hall or police station or something like that and working with them on a focused campaign
to make sure the voters and the stakeholders have all the information they need.
(20:07):
So it can be any, any number of things.
I had, I was telling somebody I had one morning last week where in the first three hours I
had internal comms, external comms on a crisis in three hours.
So, so it's, it's very exciting.
But no, and it's very much like a newsroom.
I think that that's sort of, you know, one of the other wonderful things about working
(20:29):
here is, is you do have that mix of things.
No one is doing any one thing here at it solely for the most part.
So it's very, it's interesting, you know, we can have very, very slow days and all of
a sudden you're hitting the floor just like in the newsroom and, and rushing off to something
or, or, or handling a client who has a, you know, something huge going on right then.
(20:57):
So then you have to be ready to go.
So speaking of newsrooms, you know, you spent a lot of your career as a managing editor
and senior editor at the son of Lowell.
I knew it as a Lowell son, but I know that that changed.
It was a daily.
So, you know, I had been a news editor at a weekly and I had been a publisher of a monthly
(21:18):
and I felt, and we had, it was different.
We had our own crushing deadlines, but I can't even imagine what it must have been like to
have to put out and churn out that daily news.
Like what, how did you do it?
I mean, what were their tools that you use to kind of keep your team moving and managing
all of that?
I mean, how did you do it?
(21:41):
You really do need a good team.
I have to start there.
It's never, you talk about the CEO or the leader being the face, well, when you are
in senior management newspaper, you're sort of the face of the newspaper and you're the
people, you know, the person people think is involved in everything when you're really
not a lot of the day to day operations, you know, there's a level of editors, whether
(22:02):
it's assignment desk, copy desk layout, who are all involved in that process and you all
do have to work together as a team.
So, you know, it's planning every day, at least twice a day, just sort of figure out
what we're going to do.
That was our new cycle.
But the thing about journalism is it does not matter what your plan is.
(22:26):
You need to have plan B, plan C and be able to throw all of those out in need B.
I spent a lot of my time early on in my career on copy desks doing pagination, trying to hit
deadlines.
I think it's really great training knowing that you need all of this content by this
time.
And now you can go do, now you can go do all of that work.
(22:48):
So important stories are read.
They're getting enough attention.
It's the planning of who's going to do what, when, how it fits into their schedule, who's
going to work weekends, who's working nights.
It's sort of this entity that has a life of its own.
And again, throwing something out because you just have to and move on to something else
(23:12):
because stuff happens.
Yep.
Yep.
Just wanted to pick your brain on this.
So I, one of my last roles prior to launching the company that we have now was, I was a
comms manager.
And one of the things that I found a little bit challenging was capturing and elevating
(23:33):
the executive voice.
I was lucky enough to have a supervisor manager who thought the way I did, which is a company's
brand of the CEO, their voice has to be, their presence needs to be elevated.
But I, over my career of marketing and communications, I've worked with a fair amount of CEOs and
(23:55):
each person's very unique style.
And they had, they knew what they wanted to say, they knew how they wanted to portray
themselves.
And, sometimes we needed to advise on best practices and this is your brand and do you
really want to be seen that way.
So sometimes our agendas maybe would clash a little bit.
(24:19):
When you're dealing with a client, what are some strategies or tactics even that you're
using to sort of elevate their story and, but, but at the same time giving them what
they want, even if maybe the agendas may not totally align.
Well, point one is I think when a company hires an agency, they're hiring the expertise
(24:46):
of the agency.
At the same time, we both gave up pride of ownership when we went into public relations,
you know, anything we write doesn't belong to us.
Anything we do, it belongs to the client.
So honestly, at the end of the day, if you want to say red and the client says blue,
it's blue.
That said, I like to kid that we have a lot of smart clients because they tend to know
(25:09):
what they don't know.
And they know they're not essentially the best communicators.
And I have actually had a client tell me, gave me some content, he said, can you just
make me sound smart?
Of course, he's a favorite client because I, so I try to do, you know, and, and there's
some who, you know, want to change words a phrase, you know, and that's fine.
I think for the most part, our client base understands that we're there to be that expertise.
(25:34):
You do have people who push back on language.
And then you do have that discussion.
You know, this is why we think you should do this this way or say this in this particular
way.
And here's the rationale behind it.
With the understanding that they might push back from you.
And I think it's healthy for the most part to have those discussions.
I know sometimes when I'm writing for a client, I'm, I get feedbacks like, wow, this sounds
(25:59):
just like me.
And I'm like, well, that's totally lucky because I don't know how you, how you sound.
But as you develop clients over time, you learn where their frameworks are.
I won't name any specifics, but I can tell you that clients are very narrow views about
what they want to sound like.
And so for me, it's a matter of pouring that, you know, what they want to say into that
(26:23):
frame.
Others are like, nope, this is great, you know, and pushing out.
I think one strategy is to encourage the client to set themselves apart.
And I'll give you just a very specific example from last year.
We had one of our communities had very unfortunate anti-Semitic incident at which point community
(26:48):
rallies and they're going to have a community event on the common to create the event and
express solidarity.
You and I have been at enough of these events to know roughly what they're going to sound
like and look like.
And the client reached out to me and said, the select board chair has to make some comments
and she's really not sure of what she wants to say.
(27:11):
You think you could just draft up some ideas.
And again, knowing that, that area and exactly what's going to be saying, I want her to sound
different.
I want her to be the standout.
If TV is covering it that night, I want her statement to be the one they pick up on.
So I actually went up doing some research about the client in their background and was
(27:34):
able to position her story about why her family moved to town, the wonderful things about
the town.
Why this is the exception, but also why it's important we all get together and do what we
can to make sure this doesn't happen again.
And it was a very different take on the very sort of formulaic things that sometimes you
hear at those events.
(27:55):
So that was my thinking in that.
And again, as the back and forth, the response I got was, I'm going to tweak a couple of
things, but okay.
And I'm like, great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's always a great feeling when your stuff is used.
Right.
Well, absolutely.
I had a situation with a piece that I had done the copy for and I had had a designer
(28:24):
do the design for it and the company came back and said, you know, we want to change
the design.
Can you fix this?
So they said, we'll have some edits for you.
And when I got the edits back, they were pointing at certain design elements and they had maybe
changed like four words, but they kept like almost all the copy.
(28:44):
And I was like, wow, okay.
I nailed it.
Clearly I got what they wanted me to say.
So that felt really, really good.
And this is, again, we talk about the journalism versus PR, you know, we take public success
at a newspaper, you know, for us now, a client gives you wonderful feedback.
He's like, that's your day.
(29:05):
Yeah, exactly.
You know, because it's like, okay, I was able to do what you asked me to do.
I was able to capture your voice and your story.
So I got it.
Right.
Well, going back to what you just said about the importance of comms training, you know,
if there's, if we have a listener out there who is a budding PR professional or a budding
(29:28):
journalist and they want to, you know, go into and, you know, engage in the craft, you
know, what advice do you have for them, both from sort of the professional standpoint,
but also from the storytelling standpoint?
Curiosity is number one.
You have to wonder about the world around you.
(29:49):
You have to wonder about what people do and how they do it and why they do it.
And then be able to have the skills on the other end to tell people what that is and
how that affects them.
Why should you read this?
You know, there's a difference in writing.
(30:12):
You know, most journalists write reports, you know, who, when, where, why, how, piece
of it.
Storytellers, they're about character and dramatic arc if there is one and sense of
place.
And I think, you know, in the story that I read earlier, there's all of those elements
in there, which is why it's a little transportive.
(30:35):
The best analogy I can give is if you were going to write an obituary, how would you
write it?
And if you were going to write a eulogy, how would you write it?
I always look at the eulogy as the chance to have that person there one more day.
So if you stood up in the church to give a eulogy, for example, if I was giving your
(30:56):
eulogy, I would be talking, I wouldn't be talking about she did the bill with a green
and she founded a company.
You know, I'd be talking about Leanna the person, you know, her kindness, her generosity,
you know, the things she did in the community, you know, everybody loves their kids, everybody
loves their family, everyone's a hard worker.
(31:17):
But why and how?
You know, give me an example, tell me what makes someone a family man?
Tell me what makes someone a great cook?
Tell me what makes someone a Big Red Sox fan?
That's far more important because that really brings that person alive one more time.
In a PR sense, it's the same type of thing.
(31:40):
You want to have that connection.
You know, it isn't just enough to say, this is a really good program, but why and what
does it mean?
What's the impact that you can have on a school community?
We work with a lot of school districts.
If I have a school story where there's a great program, I want to be able to tell people,
no, this is important.
(32:00):
Here's the impact that it's had.
You know, here's the tangible results.
Here how these students have succeeded because of this program.
Very, it's very different, but it's that next level.
There's a lot of journalists who don't ever want to get into the storytelling piece of
it or PR professionals probably don't want to get into the storytelling piece of it,
but it's it's hard to be a storyteller.
(32:23):
You have to have all of your senses available.
You fill notebooks with content and then and the best part of that is you throw out 90%
of it.
So what you're doing is you're mining for gold.
You throw out all the rocks and you keep the gold nuggets and the gold nuggets are your
story and that's it's a lot more work.
(32:44):
It's a lot more thinking, it's a lot more sweat equity, it's a lot more stress, but
the product on the other hand is just is wonderful.
So much better.
And that's what people want.
You know, they want the story.
I think, you know, that's what the audience wants.
Well, and just to back PR one more second, you know, it's it's a marketing, for example,
(33:06):
this big difference between a car company telling you by our car to some to a friend,
trusted friends saying to you, geez, I just got this car.
It's really great.
You should look at it.
Yeah, all the difference in the world.
It's personal.
It's one way and the more personally you can be more up close, you can be with sources
and content.
It just elevates you.
(33:28):
It'll elevate the reader for a journalist.
It'll elevate the client if you're in PR.
Yep.
One of the things that I did and we will start wrapping up with this is, you know, one of
the things that I did when I had the green was we would do branded advertising branded
storytelling.
And you know, somebody would place their ad, but then they would have the promo article
(33:49):
there.
And some of it, some of it was salesy, of course, you mean that's what they wanted.
But a lot of times it gave me the opportunity to actually tell, you know, a tiny little
story about something or someone that expanded.
So it wasn't just an ad in the newspaper.
You know, you got to know who this was and, and, you know, what they were, what they were
(34:14):
about.
And, and I think that was, that was key.
Well, that's about all the time we have for today.
Thank you so much for being here, Tom.
It's been wonderful to talk about PR and journalism and, and just get to spend this time with
you.
I appreciate you being here.
(34:35):
It's just been wonderful catching up with you, Leana.
Thanks for having me again.
And hopefully we can talk soon.
That would be great.
And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTB studios in Bedford, Massachusetts,
or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Prime,
thanks for listening.
(34:56):
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
Happy storytelling.
Bye.
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
(00:04):
at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
Three firefighters from the rescue squad arrived at 15 Hurd Street for admission yesterday
morning.
It was all new to Lieutenant Charles Stamp and firefighters Dave Mayer and John Duby.
Safe crackers are usually on the other side of the law.
(00:25):
Police detectives usually handle mysteries.
A small cooperative bank had a riddle to solve in the basement.
What was in the stubborn safe that wouldn't open?
Stacks of cash?
A trove of coins?
Or perhaps this is a reprise of Geraldo Rivera's April 21, 1986 live TV broadcast of the opening
of Al Capone's vault.
(00:46):
Breathless Geraldo and his crew broke through a 7,000 pound concrete wall at Chicago's
Lexington Hall that night and found nothing.
Yesterday, 55 minutes after they began, the firefighters cracked open the door.
With one final pry, Stamp set the heavy door crashing to the basement floor.
You could feel it land.
A whiff of a must coursed through the room.
(01:07):
The mystery was solved.
Everyone smiled.
The locksmith and his son videotaped it.
The bank president watched.
Walter Baylis, a bank director, looked on with particular glee.
The safe door emblazoned the Muller-Sloos safe company Boston stared back at them.
The building opened in 1948 and three banks called it home.
(01:29):
The Vilsex Cooperative Bank, the first federal savings in the loan, and Butler Bank.
Lowell Police used it as a domestic computer center for five years.
Honor Louis Sob sold the building to Lowell Cooperative.
The bank wants to renovate, but first there was a question of three vaults.
The others on the first floor in the basement had opened without a hitch.
(01:49):
Carmen Jecnavorian, owner of Post Office Lock and Key, opened them with the combinations,
swinging the 18-inch thick steel doorstep to reveal some shelves, empty cabinets, and
a few two-shaped fluorescent vaults.
The third vault would not yield.
We don't need these vaults, said Richard Cough from the bank president.
(02:10):
We'll trash this one, but we'll keep the other two.
Baylis brought in the firefighters.
These guys trained with the jaws of life he'd figured.
If someone had become trapped in a bank vault, how would they get out?
Jecnavorian briefed the fire crew.
Bolts retracted, handle broken, maybe locked inside at the top.
This could be quite no deal, the locksmith said.
(02:31):
We've never done anything like this before, Stamps said.
They brought an air chisel, a hydraulic ram, a K-12 saw, various wrenches, a hydraulic door
spreader.
They decided to peel away the steel frame on the top of the sides.
Within a minute, pop.
The rim separates from the wall.
Stamp works up the right side, the trims squealing, popping and cracking as the metal bends like
(02:54):
taffy.
The safes have come a long way, says Jecnavorian, a lock history buff of sorts.
In India, he says, the emperor used to take his valuables and seal them in a large block
of wood than submerged in a pool.
And they had crocodiles in there on strict food rations, so they were always hungry.
When they wanted the valuables, they'd either drug the crocs or kill them.
(03:16):
Stamp cranks the hydraulic tool.
We can peel away the top here, Mayor says.
Pop it off and fold it down.
Then another loud pop.
Good one, Mayor says.
Duby leaves to gather more tools.
With a wrench, Duby removes the six bolts that hold the door to the frame.
It takes four minutes.
Or in, he says.
(03:37):
He's joking.
He tries to peel off the outer casing with a crowbar.
It rejects his efforts with a sproing.
It must be a quick ray in.
Someone mentions calling a welder.
A firefighter's dragging an air compressor, hoses and saw attachments.
They can't get enough air pressure.
A bead of sweat falls from muscular Duby's shaved head.
He grabs the hydraulic tool, heads back to the door, and pumps the instrument doing the
(04:01):
work for it.
He works up to the left side.
Pop.
18 inches higher.
Pop.
Six inches above that.
Pop.
He tears out the frame with a suspended ceiling over his head.
And inserts the hydraulic tool.
Crackle.
Pop.
The frame just splits under the pressure.
The stamp pulls it half down.
The other half is wedged off.
(04:24):
Stamp picks up the halogen, a long thin steel tool, and swings it with the end of the curved
spike at the wall along the vault tool.
As he slams, plaster flies.
On one swing, the spike wedges between the steel door and the frame.
The door budges, then recedes.
It hits the spot again.
It budges more.
Everyone sees it this time.
(04:44):
Whoa, whoa, I think we've got it, Mayor Shouts.
Ready?
Stamp prides the door and opens a bit.
Everybody takes a step back.
Stamp prides hard.
It flops like a steel wheel forward and onto the ground.
A funky smell waths through the room.
Mayor heads inside the vault with a spotlight.
(05:05):
Look at the money!
More humor.
He finds wood shelves, boldly carpet rolls, and old desk.
The bankers box is filled with vintage accounting equipment and finger dial phones.
Its document, Vault Chief Knoborian says, probably last opened in the 1980s.
No rivetches.
On the backside of the door, a warning is handwritten.
(05:26):
Do not close the door.
Hello, my name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
(05:47):
I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Marcom and Project Management firm headquartered on
the east coast of the US in quaint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
I'm your host and passionate about storytelling, and I'm actually on a mission to raise up
the next generation of storytellers.
We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
(06:08):
The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
One step, one starfish, or one story at a time.
Every episode, we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
and connect with you.
Then we break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their own
(06:31):
stories.
So thanks for tuning in.
Now let's get started.
Today's episode is about PR and journalism, storytelling across the media.
With me today is Tom Zupa, senior account executive from John Guilfoyle Public Relations
and former managing editor for the Sun of Lowell.
I am so excited that you are here.
(06:52):
I am so happy we get to talk shop.
So thank you and welcome.
Thank you, Lana.
I really appreciate the invitation.
You're welcome.
I'm glad you're here.
So we would love to hear you introduce yourself.
You just shared this amazing story with us, but please tell our listeners who are you.
So my name is Tom Zupa and as you said, I work at John Guilfoyle Public Relations.
(07:14):
I had a very long career in journalism at a number of stops.
The last stop was in Lowell at the Sun and that's sort of how we met one another years
ago.
And a few years back, you know, local journalism started not being what it once was.
And I was one of the many people who all of a sudden found themselves in search of another
(07:34):
job.
So considered a lot of options and just kind of found this wonderful new home at John Guilfoyle
Public Relations.
John is a former journalist.
We have a lot of former journalists on staff.
We work almost primarily with municipal government.
So town schools, police, fire, and we're sort of that extra hand when they need it.
(07:58):
So if it's internal communications, external communications, crisis management, we just
sort of that extra hand somebody to talk to, somebody to consult with.
John started the company 10 years ago himself and five clients.
And we now have about 300 clients.
We work in 11 states.
We have a video division and a web marketing division and a spin off training academy to
(08:25):
train communicators.
So it's been a wonderful change of pace.
It is wonderful working in a growth industry.
Nice.
Nice.
And that's really good to hear as far as public relations is concerned, you know, and
you know, kudos to your boss for launching and growing the way he has.
(08:47):
So good for him.
So I really loved the story.
You know, I think we typically have folks come in and share personal stories.
We've only had a few people come in and share an actual story.
So where did you, you said that was one of your favorite stories.
(09:08):
Like how, where did you hear that story?
Or how long have you known that story?
So this is actually a story from the son, one of my former colleagues, Dave Perry, who
was probably one of the three best storytellers I've ever worked with in my career.
Dave just had a way with words.
And we got one of that story that day and he decided to go out and let me check this
(09:31):
out and see what it was.
And just Dave had all the right words on that day.
I love the story so much because it uses so much of storytelling.
You know, it's, I always tell people, you don't write with your pen, you write with
your eyes and your ears and all of your senses.
So in that story clip, you get, you get the smell of the room.
(09:53):
You get the feel of, of the door striking the ground.
You get the intensity.
You sort of have a sense of place.
And when you're able to pull all those things together as a storyteller, the reader gets
a little bit transported.
You sort of, you can forget time.
You know, all of a sudden it's five minutes where you're not thinking about your job or
(10:13):
what's coming up for dinner that evening or errands you have to run.
You sort of, it takes you out of that, that your regular life.
And to me, those were always the most refreshing stories to read.
I mean, that's one of many, many narrative stories I've read of you, but that continues
to be one of my favorites because it does bring all the elements together.
And I mean, you really did take us on a journey.
(10:36):
You know, I could feel myself really concentrating when you were telling the story because I
was like, what's going to happen next?
You know, and there was such a buildup of, you know, going through the layers of the
vaults and, you know, the sounds.
And so it was very well told, but you know, you're a storyteller.
Well, not my words though.
(10:57):
Those are Dave's words.
No, no, no, I understand that.
But I think, I think you come from a background of being a storyteller.
And I think when you are a storyteller, you know how to tell a story.
You know, we both come from a background in journalism and PR.
My graduate degree is in PR.
And so I was, I was reading up on it and, you know, storytelling, journalism is storytelling
(11:24):
with a purpose.
You know, there's a purpose for when you're telling a story.
And you know, it's on the journalists to verify, collect information and then present
it in a way that is going to make for a good story.
And you know, journalists really are those who are the eyes and ears for the situations
and circumstances, the issues that we all face.
(11:45):
And they present it in a way that really helps everybody be able to understand it.
And PR, you know, public relations, you know, you're meant to create this really relevant
narrative and you're trying to get that emotional response from the audience.
And in essence, trying to get them to act.
So you know, I, you know, I think there's, there's such a, there's such a need today
(12:11):
for really good storytelling.
And I mean, I know from on the corporate level, you know, they're big companies now are dedicating
just entire web pages just to their stories, whether they're news stories, whether they're
employee stories, whether they're customer stories, because stories sell.
(12:32):
I mean, you know, that's, it's how you really get to know, you know, as, as the audience,
it's really how you get to know the storytellers.
And I think another very important thing for storytellers is you have to be able to get
close.
Okay.
Dave was in the room that day.
That's how he told that story.
If you're writing for a client, it's important that you, you're able to connect that client
(12:59):
to the consumer or the reader so that they, they have that understanding.
If you are vague, if you're not using clear language, if you are scattered in your writing,
it doesn't deliver as well.
You can, piano writing is, is much different than journalism.
It uses a lot of the same skills.
I, I use so much of, of my, my journalism experience on my job because I'm writing and
(13:24):
reporting every day and, and thinking and planning as well.
So the writing can be a little more limited at times, but it's still, you know, I try
to be a little creative when I can be.
We're serving different audiences.
The journalist serves the reader and while we may be serving our clients, sometimes it's
(13:49):
how you serve your clients and having them understand that clear communications and effective
communications is really how you want to, want to, you know, engage with the community.
I mean, PR is, is a slow game.
It really is, you know, it's one step at a time, you know, a marketing is buy this,
(14:10):
buy this right now and then two weeks later, we're going to sell you something else.
PR is, is about reputation management and brand awareness and no one press release
ever changes that.
It's an ongoing part of the puzzle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(14:31):
And I found it as a comms manager, you know, it's, it's sort of the breadcrumbs, you know,
that gets you to where you want to go, you know, and having a client or an employer,
if you work for an employer who understands that it is tied to brand awareness and that
(14:51):
it is a slow process and that they're, they're in for the long haul.
I think is key to making the work that you do as a PR practitioner and professional,
most successful.
Right.
Right.
And what we, we advise clients, we tell them this is, this is a long effort.
(15:12):
If you have been damaged reputationally, it is a very long way to get back.
And you know, for example, if you have a client who has had a crisis that needs to be addressed
immediately, it's not going to be fixed the next day.
It's going to be fixed over the course of weeks and months.
And that good PR and consistent PR positions you as being successful.
(15:38):
And I always try to tell clients, you want the bad thing to be the exception and not
the rule.
You want to have a long stretch of really good positive views so that when a bad thing
happens and it always happens, the bad thing is now, oh, well, geez, they're really your
organization.
They know what they're doing.
(15:59):
This is an exception as opposed to, oh my God, not that.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And that sort of acceptance of you, we all make mistakes and right.
And that, you know, having really good PR helps you sort of come out on the other side.
And honestly, in crises, some clients don't understand that at first.
(16:19):
You know, they're in, they're in the hole.
They're, they're really worried about next steps and like, no, take responsibility.
You know, taking responsibility shows leadership.
Yeah.
Promise how you're going to fix something.
Yeah.
And fix it.
And, and it's, it is an ongoing process and it's, it's not something everyone in a crisis
(16:42):
grasps initially, but it is, it mitigates long-term reputational damage.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't just blow over.
You know, I had a situation as a, as a comms professional that there was somebody who
was already on a team that, you know, publicly lied and was sued and it impacted the organization.
(17:09):
And, you know, it, it took a lot of having a solid and they didn't have a crisis.
You mean like they didn't have a crisis protocol.
Like they didn't have a crisis protocol.
So we needed to craft that, develop that and then put that into practice.
And, you know, it took a long time, many years actually to come out on the other side fully.
(17:36):
And when I say that, I don't mean like it was just years of this difficult thing.
I mean, it was, you know, progressively got better, but, but like you said, it wasn't
like a, it didn't happen overnight.
And I think this is perhaps where we have a little bit of an advantage over someone who's
purely a PR practitioner because we've been on the other side of the fence.
(17:56):
Yep.
And we've asked the tough questions and we know we can anticipate journalist questions
and community reaction or stakeholder reaction.
Yes.
So, you know, to be able to tell a client, no, this is what's going to happen.
These are the questions you're going to have.
These are the questions you've got to be prepared to answer, you know, and this is going to be
your fallout.
(18:17):
It's extremely valuable.
Yep.
And to think that you could dodge the, the press was, you know, that was sort of an,
like, it was like an awakening for them, you know, it was like, you're not going to.
So let's have a plan on how we're going to engage with them and communicate with them
because they're going to want to know.
(18:39):
And it is extremely difficult for a leader in that situation to stand up and take the
fire.
But that's really a piece of leadership.
And, and hard because if it's somebody on your team, you know, just by default, by the
being the leader, it's your fault too.
Right.
You do have to stand up and take that.
(19:01):
So, so you, you have been in PR now a few years, but you had a long career in journalism.
You told us a little bit about why the, why the move.
So what are your, what are you mostly doing these days with, with your comms work?
I mean, are you doing primarily crisis comms or are you doing everything or?
(19:23):
Well, and that's one of the joy, we're a mid-sized agency.
We have 17 full-time employees.
So we become experts on a lot of things very quickly.
So my day can be anything from writing press releases to client outreach to managing a crisis.
I have a sales component.
(19:44):
I never thought I'd be involved in sales, but here I am.
And it, some of it's long-term planning, some of it's campaign planning.
You know, if we've had a lot of success with communities that are trying to build a new
town hall or police station or something like that and working with them on a focused campaign
to make sure the voters and the stakeholders have all the information they need.
(20:07):
So it can be any, any number of things.
I had, I was telling somebody I had one morning last week where in the first three hours I
had internal comms, external comms on a crisis in three hours.
So, so it's, it's very exciting.
But no, and it's very much like a newsroom.
I think that that's sort of, you know, one of the other wonderful things about working
(20:29):
here is, is you do have that mix of things.
No one is doing any one thing here at it solely for the most part.
So it's very, it's interesting, you know, we can have very, very slow days and all of
a sudden you're hitting the floor just like in the newsroom and, and rushing off to something
or, or, or handling a client who has a, you know, something huge going on right then.
(20:57):
So then you have to be ready to go.
So speaking of newsrooms, you know, you spent a lot of your career as a managing editor
and senior editor at the son of Lowell.
I knew it as a Lowell son, but I know that that changed.
It was a daily.
So, you know, I had been a news editor at a weekly and I had been a publisher of a monthly
(21:18):
and I felt, and we had, it was different.
We had our own crushing deadlines, but I can't even imagine what it must have been like to
have to put out and churn out that daily news.
Like what, how did you do it?
I mean, what were their tools that you use to kind of keep your team moving and managing
all of that?
I mean, how did you do it?
(21:41):
You really do need a good team.
I have to start there.
It's never, you talk about the CEO or the leader being the face, well, when you are
in senior management newspaper, you're sort of the face of the newspaper and you're the
people, you know, the person people think is involved in everything when you're really
not a lot of the day to day operations, you know, there's a level of editors, whether
(22:02):
it's assignment desk, copy desk layout, who are all involved in that process and you all
do have to work together as a team.
So, you know, it's planning every day, at least twice a day, just sort of figure out
what we're going to do.
That was our new cycle.
But the thing about journalism is it does not matter what your plan is.
(22:26):
You need to have plan B, plan C and be able to throw all of those out in need B.
I spent a lot of my time early on in my career on copy desks doing pagination, trying to hit
deadlines.
I think it's really great training knowing that you need all of this content by this
time.
And now you can go do, now you can go do all of that work.
(22:48):
So important stories are read.
They're getting enough attention.
It's the planning of who's going to do what, when, how it fits into their schedule, who's
going to work weekends, who's working nights.
It's sort of this entity that has a life of its own.
And again, throwing something out because you just have to and move on to something else
(23:12):
because stuff happens.
Yep.
Yep.
Just wanted to pick your brain on this.
So I, one of my last roles prior to launching the company that we have now was, I was a
comms manager.
And one of the things that I found a little bit challenging was capturing and elevating
(23:33):
the executive voice.
I was lucky enough to have a supervisor manager who thought the way I did, which is a company's
brand of the CEO, their voice has to be, their presence needs to be elevated.
But I, over my career of marketing and communications, I've worked with a fair amount of CEOs and
(23:55):
each person's very unique style.
And they had, they knew what they wanted to say, they knew how they wanted to portray
themselves.
And, sometimes we needed to advise on best practices and this is your brand and do you
really want to be seen that way.
So sometimes our agendas maybe would clash a little bit.
(24:19):
When you're dealing with a client, what are some strategies or tactics even that you're
using to sort of elevate their story and, but, but at the same time giving them what
they want, even if maybe the agendas may not totally align.
Well, point one is I think when a company hires an agency, they're hiring the expertise
(24:46):
of the agency.
At the same time, we both gave up pride of ownership when we went into public relations,
you know, anything we write doesn't belong to us.
Anything we do, it belongs to the client.
So honestly, at the end of the day, if you want to say red and the client says blue,
it's blue.
That said, I like to kid that we have a lot of smart clients because they tend to know
(25:09):
what they don't know.
And they know they're not essentially the best communicators.
And I have actually had a client tell me, gave me some content, he said, can you just
make me sound smart?
Of course, he's a favorite client because I, so I try to do, you know, and, and there's
some who, you know, want to change words a phrase, you know, and that's fine.
I think for the most part, our client base understands that we're there to be that expertise.
(25:34):
You do have people who push back on language.
And then you do have that discussion.
You know, this is why we think you should do this this way or say this in this particular
way.
And here's the rationale behind it.
With the understanding that they might push back from you.
And I think it's healthy for the most part to have those discussions.
I know sometimes when I'm writing for a client, I'm, I get feedbacks like, wow, this sounds
(25:59):
just like me.
And I'm like, well, that's totally lucky because I don't know how you, how you sound.
But as you develop clients over time, you learn where their frameworks are.
I won't name any specifics, but I can tell you that clients are very narrow views about
what they want to sound like.
And so for me, it's a matter of pouring that, you know, what they want to say into that
(26:23):
frame.
Others are like, nope, this is great, you know, and pushing out.
I think one strategy is to encourage the client to set themselves apart.
And I'll give you just a very specific example from last year.
We had one of our communities had very unfortunate anti-Semitic incident at which point community
(26:48):
rallies and they're going to have a community event on the common to create the event and
express solidarity.
You and I have been at enough of these events to know roughly what they're going to sound
like and look like.
And the client reached out to me and said, the select board chair has to make some comments
and she's really not sure of what she wants to say.
(27:11):
You think you could just draft up some ideas.
And again, knowing that, that area and exactly what's going to be saying, I want her to sound
different.
I want her to be the standout.
If TV is covering it that night, I want her statement to be the one they pick up on.
So I actually went up doing some research about the client in their background and was
(27:34):
able to position her story about why her family moved to town, the wonderful things about
the town.
Why this is the exception, but also why it's important we all get together and do what we
can to make sure this doesn't happen again.
And it was a very different take on the very sort of formulaic things that sometimes you
hear at those events.
(27:55):
So that was my thinking in that.
And again, as the back and forth, the response I got was, I'm going to tweak a couple of
things, but okay.
And I'm like, great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's always a great feeling when your stuff is used.
Right.
Well, absolutely.
I had a situation with a piece that I had done the copy for and I had had a designer
(28:24):
do the design for it and the company came back and said, you know, we want to change
the design.
Can you fix this?
So they said, we'll have some edits for you.
And when I got the edits back, they were pointing at certain design elements and they had maybe
changed like four words, but they kept like almost all the copy.
(28:44):
And I was like, wow, okay.
I nailed it.
Clearly I got what they wanted me to say.
So that felt really, really good.
And this is, again, we talk about the journalism versus PR, you know, we take public success
at a newspaper, you know, for us now, a client gives you wonderful feedback.
He's like, that's your day.
(29:05):
Yeah, exactly.
You know, because it's like, okay, I was able to do what you asked me to do.
I was able to capture your voice and your story.
So I got it.
Right.
Well, going back to what you just said about the importance of comms training, you know,
if there's, if we have a listener out there who is a budding PR professional or a budding
(29:28):
journalist and they want to, you know, go into and, you know, engage in the craft, you
know, what advice do you have for them, both from sort of the professional standpoint,
but also from the storytelling standpoint?
Curiosity is number one.
You have to wonder about the world around you.
(29:49):
You have to wonder about what people do and how they do it and why they do it.
And then be able to have the skills on the other end to tell people what that is and
how that affects them.
Why should you read this?
You know, there's a difference in writing.
(30:12):
You know, most journalists write reports, you know, who, when, where, why, how, piece
of it.
Storytellers, they're about character and dramatic arc if there is one and sense of
place.
And I think, you know, in the story that I read earlier, there's all of those elements
in there, which is why it's a little transportive.
(30:35):
The best analogy I can give is if you were going to write an obituary, how would you
write it?
And if you were going to write a eulogy, how would you write it?
I always look at the eulogy as the chance to have that person there one more day.
So if you stood up in the church to give a eulogy, for example, if I was giving your
(30:56):
eulogy, I would be talking, I wouldn't be talking about she did the bill with a green
and she founded a company.
You know, I'd be talking about Leanna the person, you know, her kindness, her generosity,
you know, the things she did in the community, you know, everybody loves their kids, everybody
loves their family, everyone's a hard worker.
(31:17):
But why and how?
You know, give me an example, tell me what makes someone a family man?
Tell me what makes someone a great cook?
Tell me what makes someone a Big Red Sox fan?
That's far more important because that really brings that person alive one more time.
In a PR sense, it's the same type of thing.
(31:40):
You want to have that connection.
You know, it isn't just enough to say, this is a really good program, but why and what
does it mean?
What's the impact that you can have on a school community?
We work with a lot of school districts.
If I have a school story where there's a great program, I want to be able to tell people,
no, this is important.
(32:00):
Here's the impact that it's had.
You know, here's the tangible results.
Here how these students have succeeded because of this program.
Very, it's very different, but it's that next level.
There's a lot of journalists who don't ever want to get into the storytelling piece of
it or PR professionals probably don't want to get into the storytelling piece of it,
but it's it's hard to be a storyteller.
(32:23):
You have to have all of your senses available.
You fill notebooks with content and then and the best part of that is you throw out 90%
of it.
So what you're doing is you're mining for gold.
You throw out all the rocks and you keep the gold nuggets and the gold nuggets are your
story and that's it's a lot more work.
(32:44):
It's a lot more thinking, it's a lot more sweat equity, it's a lot more stress, but
the product on the other hand is just is wonderful.
So much better.
And that's what people want.
You know, they want the story.
I think, you know, that's what the audience wants.
Well, and just to back PR one more second, you know, it's it's a marketing, for example,
(33:06):
this big difference between a car company telling you by our car to some to a friend,
trusted friends saying to you, geez, I just got this car.
It's really great.
You should look at it.
Yeah, all the difference in the world.
It's personal.
It's one way and the more personally you can be more up close, you can be with sources
and content.
It just elevates you.
(33:28):
It'll elevate the reader for a journalist.
It'll elevate the client if you're in PR.
Yep.
One of the things that I did and we will start wrapping up with this is, you know, one of
the things that I did when I had the green was we would do branded advertising branded
storytelling.
And you know, somebody would place their ad, but then they would have the promo article
(33:49):
there.
And some of it, some of it was salesy, of course, you mean that's what they wanted.
But a lot of times it gave me the opportunity to actually tell, you know, a tiny little
story about something or someone that expanded.
So it wasn't just an ad in the newspaper.
You know, you got to know who this was and, and, you know, what they were, what they were
(34:14):
about.
And, and I think that was, that was key.
Well, that's about all the time we have for today.
Thank you so much for being here, Tom.
It's been wonderful to talk about PR and journalism and, and just get to spend this time with
you.
I appreciate you being here.
(34:35):
It's just been wonderful catching up with you, Leana.
Thanks for having me again.
And hopefully we can talk soon.
That would be great.
And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTB studios in Bedford, Massachusetts,
or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Prime,
thanks for listening.
(34:56):
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
Happy storytelling.
Bye.
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