MAYO enters year 2002 with a popular feature on its website:
"Eye On PR" Everything from tricks of the trade to getting 
on the radar of industry analysts to making your company newsworthy.

 Nationally recognized and award-winning writer George McQuade
 reports on the PR industry. We also featured guest writers.

If you'd like to share your media experience please lets us know, or
feel free to comment about ours.

“Pitching stories to the Los Angeles Times Magazine”
 EPPS/PR NewsWire at breakfast with the media

by George S. Mc Quade III

“It’s been a wild ride” since Tribune purchased the LA Times, says editor Cory Brown.

“The day that Tribune Company bought the LA Times, it has been a wild ride ever since,” said Cory Brown, editor, Los Angeles Times Magazine at a PR Newswire media breakfast sponsored at the Wyndham Bel-Age Hotel, West Hollywood, CA Thursday, October 17, 2002,  coordinated by the Entertainment Publicists Society, Los Angeles chapter, which also has a chapter in New York.

                                                                                                                           Cory Brown, editor Los Angeles Times

Brown was on hand to discuss the reorganization and restructure of the Calendar and Business sections of the Los Angeles Times and to provide tips on how publicists can deal more effectively with key editorial staff. Brown wrote a cover story on Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of USA Interactive and Vivendi Universal Entertainment last year for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Prior to the Los Angeles Times Brown worked for News Week Magazine for four years and before that she worked was an editor at Premier Magazine.

“When I came on staff two-and-half years ago it was the day that Tribune Company bought the LA Times, it has been a wild ride ever since.  It has been very exciting times. They first revamp the front section creating more focus on International news and redid the Metro section into a California section bringing together the regional news in a clearly presented concise way. Now, they’ve just rolled out the changes to the Calendar and features section, which are the most massive changes of the paper. They will be getting to the Business section.”

Everyone prefers email pitching at the Los Angeles Times

“We all prefer to get email pitches and email releases at first name.lastname@latimes.com,” said Brown. “I’m perfectly happy if you call me and say did you notice I sent you an email and I hope you have a chance to call me back.  I may not call you back if I’m not interested. It is not personal. I’m trying to get through my day. I appreciate the heads up that the emails is there. I get so many emails. Most of them are for penis enlargement, balding, I can get a really low rate on my mortgage, so I’m delete, delete, deleting my email as fast as I can to get rid of this garbage out of my system. So if you call me and give me a heads up I will keep in mind when I’m going through my deletes as fast as I can.”

 
 Cory Brown, LA Times and Scott
 Pansky, EPPS president.

“Remember when you’re pitching us that news really counts,” says Los Angeles Times’ Brown

“Because there is an emphasis on news please remember when you’re pitching us that news really counts. Be sure to differentiate between the two. If it is news you’re going to get a better ride, but please don’t call and pitch a frog. If it is news it is news, and this is when we are making the announcement, and this is what the announcement is and why it is significant.  If is not news and it is a feature kind of pitch, which is fine, too, don’t dress it up as news, because we like news. We’re happy to get all kinds of pitches.

If you have a client you think is particularly interesting or is paying you a lot of money to tell me how particularly interesting he is I often have breakfast or lunch with someone just learn what they do. If they’re not very interesting and they’re still paying you a lot of money just know that I’ll walk away just make a mental note to never to talk them again. So you have to judge for yourself who’s good to call me with and say you’re going to want to know this person because they’re part of this network of people, part of this industry, their company is emerging in this way and have an off the record breakfast and gossip all over the place. Thos are great for everybody. And then I will know this person and when news happens out there I will be able to put it in context. Just know if you have a dud, and he’s paying you a lot of money, it will work against him, because I will never waste another minute of my life with that person.”

“It has never been easier to access the LA Times”

 

“It is easier to access the LA Times than it has ever been, because there are a lot more people covering entertainment then there has ever been, and there’s more new people covering entertainment than there has ever been. A lot of the writers are green, green, green, green, green and need an education and you guys (publicists) can provide that for people who are just getting going. There are lots of people who are segwaying into entertainment. All of our editors now are

new to entertainment. That’s an opportunity to give people knowledge. When you see a new name consider it an opportunity.”

“The Los Angeles Times is a tighter knit paper and it has a vision,” said Editor Brown.

Brown noted that the feature section has gotten into a rut. Everybody was doing his or her thing. They brought in an editor from the New York Times (Sam Mantorial), to pull the whole feature world together, and have a coordinate effort so that the feature section was an organism that could operate across the borders of the different sections. The SoCal Living section was merged into the California section. What you have in Calendar is a much broader, more lifestyle approach to entertainment and culture. It is better writing and bigger pictures, but it is also an organized idea with some vision on how the Los Angeles Times will present Southern California.

 “We just got a new editor of the Business section, Rick Whartzman from the Wall Street Journal,” said Brown. “It is a very exciting times for us, he has a very different idea from the Journal. They’re (WSJ) has very hard nose business reporting.  When I first came to the Los Angeles Times as an editor two and half years ago we had four reporters. We now have nine writers and reporters and three editors just covering entertainment business.”

“It is impossible to know who to pitch lately, because nobody is doing the same thing they were last week as
 the features move around in the paper,” explained Brown. “What will happen asRick Whartzman settles in his post in the Business section you see company assignments, very clearly defined beats, and you’ll see a much more organized business section for entertainment.”

“We will be writing about every dog and cat that moves, and bigger feature pieces”

“One of the mandates in all of the restructuring and in all of the efforts from the day John Caroltook over is that repeatedly, loudly, Entertainment is terribly, terribly important to this paper,” said Brown. “We want to own Entertainment, which means we will be writing about every dog and cat that moves, and bigger feature pieces, because we’re trying to write more, we’re trying to write bigger pieces and stay on top of all of the news. Joe Shapell is the editor of Entertainment news. He can direct you. If you know someone at the times continue to call and ask him or her who you should talk to.

Cory Brown can be reached at 213.237.5000, fax 213.237.4712  and cory.brown@latimes.com.

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