The client and book
In the mid-90s, I was working with a non-profit client, National Families in Action, that was trying hard to keep kids off drugs – as a father with two sons in their teens, this was a cause I could get behind. Their Executive Director had just completed writing a new book, a harsh exposé of the impact that medical marijuana was having on kids. Within a week or two of publication, the then-hit (and typically controversial) TV sit-com Murphy Brown featured its lead character smoking marijuana to fight nausea related to chemotherapy treatments she was undergoing to fight cancer.
This TV-series’ very public decision to have “Murphy Brown” smoke pot on camera created a firestorm of controversy. However, the elite media – which preferred to at least pretend at balance – was in no position to present both sides of the debate, at least in part because most reporters, editors and news program producers supported legalizing this drug for medicinal use.
The Media Opportunity
This firestorm broke literally while I was changing planes in Dallas. Realizing its potential for my client, I immediately called CNN and MSNBC (Fox News hadn’t been born yet). They were both grateful to have a “counter-point” expert in their scheduled on-air debates. They were more excited to have as that expert an author, who had automatic credibility.
Then, within the same set of phone calls, I persuaded USA Today to accept and publish a guest editorial, written by my client, addressing not just Murphy Brown but the underlying efforts of pro-drug groups to use medical marijuana as a foot-in-the-door to pave the way for legalized recreational drug use. Twenty years later, that is exactly what has happened, but in the mid-90s, this was a controversial view.
The guest editorial which ran in USA Today led to the publication of another positive editorial, this one published in New York Newsday. That second editorial was seen by A.M. Rosenthal, head of the New York Times’ editorial staff. Abe was not only inspired to write his own positive editorial – which was widely syndicated and published in more than 75 daily newspapers from coast to coast, he included in that editorial information about how people could buy a copy of my client’s new book.
Measurable Success
Calls of support inundated the charity, as did donations, and within days, the entire press run of 5,000 copies had sold out. All this occurred because I spotted this relevant breaking news story, then was able to leverage my client’s expertise – as an author – with the news media.
Source
This article is based on information featured in my forthcoming new book, Write Now! Writing YOUR Book – to Attract New Clients and Make You a News Media Expert, scheduled to be published early in 2018, in Kindle and CreateSpace.
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