Customer Reviews

Feeding the Media Beast: An Easy Recipe for Great Publicity

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Mark Mathis has a wicked sense of wit and connects immediately with the reader by first building up your self-confidence and then taking you deep into the mind of the Media Beast. He dispels the myth of unpredictability and guides you through the publicity process.

Feeding the Media Beast is a extremely well organized book. First the author tells you what he is going to present to you and the proceeds to deliver a delicious array of pithy comments, witty remarks, insightful solutions, examples you can relate to, concise descriptions and snappy quotes. This book is well researched and to the point.

The text is snappy and fresh and the author often displays an uncommon perspective. He presents unique ideas on conveying information and shows you how to use this highly potent marketing machine to promote your product or idea.

I was rather impressed with how succinctly and honestly Mark Mathis describes the Media Beast and its voracious appetites. He shows you exactly how to serve up a story the beast won't be able to resist. In fact, he says it is quite predictable.

"When a Media Leader latches onto your story, big things are bound to happen."

So, how exactly do you get the Media Beast to pay attention and hunger for your
information? It seems that once you understand the nature of the beast, you can follow twelve simple rules to success.

Mark Mathis has worked as a television reporter, columnist and talk radio host. In the past few years, he has been teaching the Media Rules. These rules include the Rule of Difference, Emotion, Simplicity, Preparation, Easy, Repetition, Resource, Invention, Timing, Ego, Balance, Ambush.

You might be especially intrigued by how he answers the following questions:

1. Why do reporters seem to have a worldview that differs from the general population?
2. Why do reporters tend to support liberal positions?
3. Where do journalists come from?
4. Why is the most popular news often irrelevant to your community?
5. How do you make a reporter care about your story?
6. Are you prepared to give an interview?
7. Do you know what the Media Beast wants for dinner?
8. Is bad publicity avoidable?
9. How can you get reporters to call you for your expert opinions?
10. How do you avoid the traps even PR professionals fall into?

Mark Mathis explores all angles, highlights simple truth and elaborates with anecdotes that will often make you laugh. You will learn how to make a difference in the world, create a compelling message and utilize DES (difference, emotion and simplicity).

Feeding the Media Beast is for anyone who views the news, produces the news, wants to be in the news or has been burned by the news.

Fear the Beast no more!
Even if he is knocking at your door.

~The Rebecca Review

It isn't enough in this day and age to have an interesting public relations story; it also has to be presented simply and powerfully to engage the media. If you are looking at how you can garner greater public recognition without the high costs of advertisement, this is the book to read. Mathis gives an easy to read and intriguing overview of the public relations business and how to make your own business stick out amidst the frenzy of information with which the media is constantly bombarded. It is indispensable especially if you are running your own small business.

I have been in business for myself as a photographer for over 20 years. I have spent countless hours in self-promotion trying to find more notable ways to get my story across and the media interested. After reading Mathis, I realize just how much I can still improve my method of handling the media and using it to my own advantage. Mathis provides 12 rules with a wealth of examples about companies which have used them successfully as well as companies that have failed miserably because their campaign didn't adhere to them. His extensive case stories provide significant understanding of the simple nature of public relations, the difficulty in working with it and the tremendous success possible if you master it.

Mathis' strongest advice is about preparation. Most businesses spend a lot of time in managing and developing products and services, but when it comes to public relations, companies often run blindly into the media. Mathis highlights that PR-savvy companies have a plan. Media contacts are not sporadic and blind shots in the dark, rather they are carefully planned out and include a variety and repetition of contacts. One effort is not enough; you have to contact local and national media again and again and again.

His discussion of how to prepare for media interviews provides strategic insights into what you need to do in order to get your point across and make sure that reporters report what you want. All too often people believe the media wants to hear the entire story with all the minor details to ensure that their new story is accurate. Mathis points out how you can prepare to make a story that is easy for a reporter to digest and that makes certain that your most important points aren't misquoted. These book details how you can develop hard-hitting, headline worthy statements.

I have already found ample opportunity to apply Mathis' understandings of the Public Relations Beast and believe that many others can as well.

If you are planning any kind of media campaign or publicity event, and you are inexperienced, this is a great book to read. Author Mark Mathis presents rules of encounter with the press, but in a way that makes them memorable (even if horrifying in some aspects.) In fact, the best feature of this book, to me, were the real life success and failure stories. These are things anyone can relate to. Examples: the car dealer who immediately jumped in to donate a vehicle to a family who suffered a tragedy--the day after the tragic story was published. Charity? Sure, all the way to the bank via good-will publicity.

Anyone who has had any dealings with the media knows that stories get garbled, facts are lost or worse, in error, and the press picks up on the worst or most trivial aspect of your message while tossing away the "meat." Plus our age of a 15-second attention span applies to the media; you'd better get your message out quickly and clearly or the media will roll over you on to the next soundbite.

My own recent encounter with a well-respected newspaper and an excellent reporter taught me that their angle on a story, which I thought was dead wrong, was the one that WOULD be published and my contrary facts would be pretty much ignored. I probably made quite a few mistakes I could have avoided, had I read this book.

If you intend to be feeding this "beast" you'd do well to read this book. It isn't a complete manual on publicity campaigns, but it is so entertainingly written that you will remember those important principles.

As a media strategist, I have endured circumstances in which the company clearly did not know what Mark Mathis is teaching.

Fundamentally, says Mathis, the media is an animal needing to be fed. They need your help, and it's your job as a company or concern to ensure they get three square meals.

Remember reporters and editors -- like real people -- have limits on their time, knowledge and experience. They have misconceptions, biases, ignorance, and in general -- they are human. Mathis shows you how to respond to this humanity, positioning your company to be covered favorably and frequently by the media.

Broken down into 12 rules, he presents not the technicalities of writing a press releasee or how to do public speaking. Rather, "Feeding the Media Beast" is about strategic principles.

The key to do it all is to think like a teacher, to be prepared and to never let up. A teacher keeps it simple and repeats his message. You prepare for whatever the reporter may throw at you, but you also provide consistent resources for that same reporter prior top, during and after the interview. Why? Because it'll increase the likelihood you'll be quoted in a more accurate context, and that whenever the reporter needs information on your issue or topic, you'll get the call. You are just making the reporter's job easy.

Sell your story on its emotional merits as well as through the facts, he says in Chapter 9, "The Rule of Education." Remember what us your passion might not be obvious to the unaware reporter. Help him tell your story. This might include anecdotes, publicity stunts and cheap gimmicks. Call it hype, but if done well, it can reap great, colorful attention to your cause.

Be forward thinking is the theme of "the Rule of Timing." Opportunities are all fleeting, and require a correct, creative response. Mathis tells us of former President Bill Clinton's ability to push forth his agenda when a national event like the OJ trial was occurring. Ideas which might not have gone over well went unnoticed because the nation was captivated by white vans and gloves which did not fit.

Bias, Mathis remarks, exists. This is particularly evident in matters of religion as indicated by overwhelmingly persuasive statistics. The media is generally swinging toward the left, as shown through a 1992 Roper Poll which said a full 89% voted for Bill Clinton, and only 7% voted for Bush, Sr. You, the publicity person, must realize this and work within this fact. See Goldberg's "Bias" for more on this.

Buy "Feeding the Media Beast," by Mark Mathis. He makes his case and states it well, with statistics, examples and personal credential. I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Media maven Mark Mathis not only knows media and how to toot his own horn, but he can show you how to toot yours. He knows that big corporations typically have a fleet of PR people scurrying about trying to manage the media. He notes that in 1996 Microsoft had an estimated 500 PR people, Time Warner had 300. (p. 112) Although it would seem that Time Warner ought to be more media savvy than Microsoft, Mathis's point is, who has more money and how do you think they got it? According to Mathis, part of the reason that Windows 95 swamped IBM's OS/2 is that Bill Gates and company did a much better job of managing the media (p. 113)

Mathis also knows that CEOs lie awake nights dreaming of schemes to seduce the media, to get some of that FREE publicity that is better than any kind of advertising. In this book he tells them how.

Mathis's formula caricatures the media into a dumb beast that can be controlled (the clever cartoons by Eric Garcia of the "beast" nicely augment the text), and presents sound-byte advice in twelve chapters each with a media "rule": keep it "simple"; make it "easy"; infuse it with "emotion"; make it "different"; be "prepared" (anticipate obvious questions and have snappy quips at the ready); "repeat," etc. He peppers his prose with lively examples, funny asides, and pithy illustrations. He recalls such media coups as the brilliant "planned spontaneity" of US soccer star Brandi Chastain who stripped to her black sports bra after kicking the winning goal against China at the 1999 World Cup championship. And he notes lost opportunities as when Dan Quayle got ambushed by Lloyd Bensen in a debate with the memorable, "Senator Quayle, I knew Jack Kennedy...and you, sir, are no Jack Kennedy." Mathis suggests that had Quayle been better prepared he might have come back with, "You're right, Mr. Benson. I've been faithful to my wife." (p. 96)

This is a media book lively enough to keep a tired CEO awake during an all-nighter to Singapore and uplifting enough to give encouragement to the depressed PR director of a sewage company. The Beast, according to Mathis in the opening chapter is "Handicapped, Hungry, Harried, and Human" In Chapter Six we find that the beast also has "Heartburn." And how does he spell relief?: "E-a-s-y," as in, make things easy for the beast. (pp. 113-114)

Reporters are characterized as underpaid, under-educated (p. 11), overworked, and not entirely bright, particularly with numbers and complex stories (see pages 73 and 76). Indeed, Mathis, an ex-reporter himself, does a little reporter bashing along the way just to make those CEOs and PR guys he's addressing feel confident. He warns against the liberal bias of the media, noting that reporters "tend to think they are smarter, more worldly, and, in general, more enlightened than the rest of us." (p. 21) I guess Mathis ought to know. But what he doesn't say is that the liberal bias of the reporters is overshadowed by the conservative bias of the owners. (Guess which slant wins out.) He doesn't mention this because he believes that it doesn't matter. The people you need to get to are the reporters. You need to know their prejudices, their needs. And Mathis knows them well. Here's his take on the need for simplicity:

"News reporters have one primary function--to simplify. A reporter can be brilliant. He can be a proficient grammarian and a dogged investigator. He can be a master of eloquence and wit. But if he cannot simplify, he might as well become a veterinarian." (p. 67)

Your job, as Mathis sees it, however, is to make sure the reporter simplifies it in a way that makes you look good. Therefore you simplify your message for the reporter! I see this as an example of something I've always stressed: you have to guide the experts. They may be experts--doctors, lawyers, reporters, etc.--but you're the one who really cares, so you have to guide them.

Although this is a fine piece of work, I do have a couple of suggestions. One, Mathis needs a chapter on "the rule of entertainment." The beast likes to be entertained and more to the point, the beast needs to be entertaining to stay in business. Also Mathis's take on why we so often "hear and see bland, boring comments" in the media (p. 57) despite his injunction to make it emotional, is not quite right. He recalls Crash Davis from the baseball movie Bull Durham (1988) telling Nuke LaLoosh to "learn your clichés." Mathis's position is that ball players should avoid the clichés and say something lively and emotive instead. He laments that politicians are particularly guilty of saying the bland and ordinary. But the reason politicians typically speak as vacuously as possible is that they don't dare say anything lively that can be used against them or be vividly recalled later on when they change their mind. And Crash had it right because ball players have a higher loyalty than gaining publicity for themselves. (Or at least they need to pretend they have.) They need to NOT stand out. They need to be part of a TEAM that cares not for personal glory but just wants to take them "one at a time" and get a "W."

I have no doubt that this book will be valuable to everyone from small business owners to the top execs at Fortune 500 companies who want to improve their ability to manage media. If I had the wherewithal and the need, I'd hire Mathis on the spot. His "recipe" is easy once you understand it, and rest assured, by the time you finish this well presented, eminently readable, entertaining and timely book, you will understand the beast, at least publicity wise.

Instead of reading that next novel, stop and read this book. First, it is entertaining! I mean it. You will laugh. You will get to read some great stories in every chapter. Second, it is easy to read. This is not "War and Peace". It reads fast and to the point. Third, you will learn things about the media that you won't find in Ann Coulter's new book (which I also loved) or Goldberg's "Bias" (which I didn't like). Why would you want to know anything about the media if you aren't a PR director? Because Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Fear always springs from ignorance." (I stole that from the last chapter.) And I say, "There is no need to fear the ignorant. You just need to not be ignorant yourself." (Or something like that.)

If you want to see why you fear and hate the liberal media read this book. Then stop being afraid and relax because now you understand what's going on. In other words life is too short to just sit around and stew about what you can't control. Understnding will prevent stewing in your on juices.

I repeat myself -- this is as good a read as the next novel you are about to pick up. Don't miss it. (I just hope the movie does it justice.)

This book's primary objective is to provide "an easy recipe for great publicity" and Mathis achieves that objective. I also think that all of the twelve "Rules" he identifies and then explains are directly relevant to internal and (especially) external communications wholly unrelated to media relations. It would be a disservice to both Mathis and to those who read this review to list the dozen. Each should be carefully considered within the context in which Mathis presents it. They meet a variety of needs which include but are not limited to media relations. Mathis does indeed enable his reader to gain a "systematic understanding of how all publicity works," a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system which is "easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to apply." In aggregate, they comprise what Mathis calls a "Media Rules methodology." Mathis suggests (and I agree) that most readers already know most of what he advocates. If true, why read his book? Good question. My response is this: Learning what to do with what we already know will determine the value of that knowledge. The 12 Rules are based on common sense in combination with the Golden Rule. Inorder to attract favorable attention and to achieve a desired objective, it is imperative to keep in mind that the media as well as business associates are generally handicapped by limitations (e.g. time), harried (e.g. by pressures and distractions), hungry (i.e. to improve their circumstances), and human (e.g. sensitive to perceived neglect and abuse). As Mathis explains, the "Beast" is an all-encompassing term "for the system that pushes the news gathering process." Perhaps Mathis would agree with me that "Beast" can also be used as an all-encompassing term for the community or communities within which one earns a living. The second "Beast" must also be "fed" with courtesy and consideration as well as with information and other resources.

Mathis divides the dozen Rules within four categories: Seducers (which attract attention amidst ever-increasing "clutter"), Enablers (preparation, simplicity, and repetition), Aggressors (which sustain initiatives), and Hazards (obviously, excesses and perils to be avoided). Mathis explains both HOW and WHY each of the 12 Rules is essential; also, HOW and WHY the 12 Rules are related, indeed interdependent. Throughout his book, he provides dozens of real-world examples to illustrate key points which include don'ts as well as do's. (Many years ago, I headed the regional PR operations of a huge advertising agency. I now regret that those don'ts and do's had been available to me then.) This is neither a textbook nor a manual, although Mathis does include at least some "how to do it" guidance.

For whom will this book be most valuable? First and foremost, those who are primarily responsible within their respective organizations for establishing and then nourishing cordial and mutually beneficial relationships with the media. It is important for many readers to understand that, if the Mathis' Media Rules are carefully and consistently followed, even small companies can obtain substantial and favorable publicity. Long ago, John Hill defined public relations as "truth well-told." I agree. Moreover, for most organizations, there are many different "publics" (other than the media) with which to establish and then nourish mutually-beneficial relationships: "stakeholders" such as employees, customers, vendors and suppliers, and service providers as well as shareholders. Hospitals also have patients among their "publics"; schools, colleges, and universities have alumni and benefactors among theirs. All of Mathis' Media Rules can also ensure "truth well-told" to these various constituencies

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Bossidy and Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done as well as Hammer's The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade and Maister's Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High-Achievement Culture.

This book is one of the best I've read on how to get the attention of the media (Beast). There are a lot of books out there with useless information. This is not one of them. The examples given are excellent, practical and right on target. It's a great read for anyone in the PR field and I highly recommend it.

I LOVE this book. As a disciple of P.T. Barnum (I wrote the only book on his business secrets), I know the value of publicity. But I don't always know how to get that publicity. This book shows you how. It's smart, fun, witty, insightful, and street-smart practical. His whole DES formula is worth the price of ancient gold. While I write lots of business books, I don't write that many reviews. I'm writing this one because this book is GREAT. Get it. Get it. Get it now. -- Joe Vitale, author of "There's A Customer Born Every Minute," "Spiritual Marketing," and many other books ...

Even though the titile says "An Easy Recipe . . ." I expected it to be aimed at people in the PR world, and probably full of the jargon those in the business usually throw around. Not so. It is entertaining, clear and very accessible. I gave it to my team after I finished and asked them to read it. Even though the press in Japan is somewhat different, the essential "Beast" is the same.