Jay Sharbutt, entertainment writer for the Associated Press, recently had a longtime wish fulfilled when a publicist called to ”pitch” a light-as-meringue story idea.
”Don`t you know there`s a war going on?” Sharbutt asked.
”I always wanted to do that,” said Sharbutt, who covered the Vietnam War and now inevitably finds himself churning out stories with Persian Gulf angles. Most of the time, he tells publicists, ”Are you crazy? Call me in two weeks.”
His response underscores how a cornerstone of modern media-the publicist- is seeing the world turned upside down, with potentially significant economic effects for everyone from television networks to struggling authors primed for a national tour to tout a book.
An outsider might be surprised to know how much of what the public reads or watches is generated by publicists. Publicity can range from a mayoral press aide handing out an announcement of a new building project to a fluffy profile of a starlet. Reporters can be mere putty in the hands of adroit practitioners of flackery.
”But, these days, people are feeling extremely self-conscious engaging in the relative trivialities of entertainment publicity. They`re dwarfed in importance by things of life and death,” said Larry Winokur, a Los Angeles entertainment publicist.
Actor Corbin Bernsen, a client of Winokur`s firm, recently starred in an NBC movie of the week, ”Human Target: The Morris Dees Story,” about a Southern civil rights attorney. A full range of interviews had been scheduled, but the actor decided to go on NBC`s ”Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and leave it at that.
”There was his sense that in deference to the seriousness of the war, what he planned to do was of lesser importance,” said Winokur.
There are holy grails for publicists. They include the network morning shows-ABC`s ”Good Morning, America,” NBC`s ”Today” and CBS` ”CBS This Morning,” as well as CNN`s ”Larry King Live” and ”Showbiz Today”;
syndicated shows such as ”Entertainment Tonight”; and the covers of major magazines, notably Time and Newsweek.
But the morning shows are dramatically slicing entertainment ”spots,”
often used as a convenient start to a nationwide publicity campaign for a movie or book.
Remember those ”exclusive” interviews with a Robert Redford or Jane Fonda ballyhooed by a morning show days before the star`s movie opens? There are precious few these days, and even CNN`s marshmallow-soft, ever-receptive
”Showbiz Today” is off the air due to the war.
People magazine, the weekly bible of celebrity doings, routinely pitches the morning shows on stories in a given week`s issue. But People publicity director Beth Kseniak said that in the war`s early going, it became clear that her usual outlets had shrunk.
”The celebrity columnists in newspapers always write about celebrities,” she said. ”But take something like USA Today`s front section, where we can usually get a placement. Now, the first four or five pages of the paper are war-related.”
The national TV talk shows, including ”Donahue” and ”The Oprah Winfrey Show,” provide some, but not complete, solace. Kseniak thought last week`s cover, on Princess Diana, might be fodder for ”The Joan Rivers Show,” but she failed. Rivers, too, has been tackling war-related topics.
Perhaps no publicists have scurried more than those in big-time publishing. Consider the host of TV and radio shows that regularly feature authors plugging a new effort.
Betty Shapian, a vice president at On the Scene Productions in Los Angeles, arranges an increasingly popular, efficient mode of promotion, the satellite interview. Rather than run around the land, racking up hotel bills and catching colds, an author sits in a studio and is interviewed
consecutively by perhaps dozens of TV stations.
But when war broke out, Shapian canceled a satellite session for Erica Jong, whose paperback, ”Any Woman`s Blues,” was coming out.
”There was no point in it; everybody`s staffs were so preoccupied with the war,” said Shapian, who waited a week and then pulled off Jong`s session. ”The bottom just dropped out of some promotional tours,” said Victoria Meyer, publicist at Simon & Schuster.
One of her authors, Avery Corman, was scheduled to appear on NBC`s
”Today” to discuss his new novel, ”Prized Possessions,” Jan. 15, the United Nations deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait. It was canceled, though an interview was taped for use later.
Mary Beth Murphy, a publicist at Random House, was distinctly hopeful for the attractiveness of ”The Choices We Made,” a compendium of 25 men and women discussing abortion, including actresses Whoopi Goldberg, Jill Clayburgh, Polly Bergen and Rita Moreno.
”The Oprah Winfrey Show,” ”Today” and CNN were among those that booked some of the stars to discuss a book whose publication date was Jan. 22, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade. Winfrey went ahead, but in at least one major market, New York, there was a lengthy interruption for war news, said Murphy.
But ”Today” and CNN took a pass. In a world in which timing is critical in creating a favorable climate for a product, such turndowns are substantial. They can mean the difference between a best-seller and a dud.
The Chicago Tribune`s national correspondent based in Denver, James Coates, was excited about a Chicago-Denver-New York-Washington tour for his
”In Mormon Circles” (Addison-Wesley), a behind-the-scenes look at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. But the publication date was Jan. 15, prompting WGN-AM 720 to kill his first interview, on Milt Rosenberg`s ”Extension 720.” The rest of the tour was canceled, too.
At the same time, one must note that war has been an economic godsend to some products, especially a lucky group of authors.
William Morrow was confident about the prospects for ”Something to Die For,” a novel by highly decorated Vietnam veteran and former Navy Secretary James Webb.
”But all of a sudden,” said publicist Greg Mowery, ”Webb was an attractive person for the media to use as an expert on the war, and the novel becomes very hot.”
Similarly, William Morrow`s ”Dirty Little Secrets: Military Information You`re Not Supposed to Know,” by James Dunnagan, which came out last fall, was revived unexpectedly as media outlets, notably NBC News, started to use Dunnagan as a war pundit.
Then there`s Simon & Schuster`s ”The Prize,” on oil, by Daniel Yergin. Publicist Meyer got him on ”Today” but, in a war-related coup, he soon made the two competing shows as an expert on Middle East oil.
”He`s a sterling example of an author benefiting by this,” says Meyer.
An even more vivid example is Random House`s ”Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf,” by Judith Miller and Laurie Mulroie. It came out Oct. 15 and, in no small measure due to the war, has risen faster than a Patriot missile. It has sold 500,000 paperback copies in the last month at $5.95 apiece.
Betsy Wagner, a CBS publicist, held back from pitching entertainment stories early on, realizing that ”a lot of reporters on the TV beat at daily papers were primarily writing about how the networks were coveing the war.”
Now, she discerns business perhaps returning to usual, with the caveat that a ground war could wreak true havoc. She`s less reticent in suggesting that reporters interview actress Frances Fisher, who will portray Lucille Ball in CBS` ”Luci and Desi: Before the Laughter.”
Of course, it`s too late for some, such as California nutritionist Dr. Sheldon Saul Hendler. He was in the middle of a West Coast tour for ”The Purification Prescription” when war hit. Lots of bookings were canceled.
”We had a solid, little tour set,” says William Morrow publicist Kurt Aldag. But even when some media outlets that had canceled called to reschedule, Aldag confronted another problem.
Given the publicity about worldwide terrorism, Hendler was too scared to get on a plane.
