Captain America - The Scoop!

It's not often that my hobbies and profession come together so nicely. Here, the comics news site Newsarama interviews New York Daily News reporter Ethan Sacks about how the paper got the scoop on the death of Captain America in the pages of Captain America #25:

NRAMA: Speaking of the scoop; there had to be a good level of coordination between you (the NY Daily News) and Marvel Entertainment. Approximately when would you say the exclusive was agreed upon?

ES: The exclusive was agreed on about two months ago. The New York Post – the Daily News’ arch-rival (picture an Australian Galactus running a paper) – had an exclusive when Spider-Man unmasked in Civil War #2 and I heard plenty about it from my editors. When I whined to Marvel that they should’ve kept me in the loop, too, they promised me a future exclusive when a story with mainstream interest would surface. So two months ago, I got a call from Marvel’s PR contact calling me into the Marvel Bullpen for a little powwow. They revealed the plans for Cap right then and there. The publisher wanted several conditions for us to get the exclusive: That we commit to most of a page up front and put a good-sized piece of art with it. It was a no-brainer for us, and my editor gave the green light later that afternoon. I didn’t even tell my wife.

Some scoop. Sacks whines about not getting the story the last time Marvel had a story that might have mainstream interest. Marvel PR says, "OK, we'll take care of you next time." And, with two months advance notice, they managed to get the story in the paper. Not exactly the classic image of the reporter dogging the company and the editor shouting "stop the presses" to get that story to us for working his deep cover contacts, is it?

It's not Sacks who trumpets this as a big scoop -- it's Newsarama. Public relations -- the art of how companies communicate to the public through media and influencers (today's definition) -- should be a required course in the media age. How organizations and media build relationships that lead to stories shouldn't be such a mystery -- it ain't rocket science folks.

It can be fun though...next time you see a big entertainment story -- or even a business story -- that strikes you as a little odd, that has you asking, "why was this on the news?" ... play the game PR people play from the outside. Ask: Who wanted this story told? Who were the unnamed sources? What did it take for this story to make the big splash that it did?