1 - 0:00:00
I read I read stories that I read them every day where a company or an organization or
politician or somebody. Wasn’t a story where they didn’t respond to the request for energy
and I just think that’s completely excusable. My communication standpoint and from from
the standpoint of someone running a business or running a company, the
responsibility and benefits of having professional relationships with media and the
communities who support your organization are more important now than ever before,
2 - 0:00:34
and it takes someone who has worked both sides of the media microphone to understand
how to work those relationships. In this episode, Steve McAllister explains how building
relationships throughout his career proved to be a benefit to himself. And the organizations
that he served stay tuned to hear how journalism principles affect both the Reporter and the
communicator when it comes to telling your organization story here on Speaking of Media,
the podcast where communicators and the media come together to consider the world of
mass storytelling. I’m Keith Marnoch, former journalist turned corporate communicator, and
I’m hoping that you, as someone who speaks on behalf of your organization, will join me for
each episode to learn about tangible ways to share your stories and messages. And also,
perhaps as importantly how to avoid getting caught in a negative media storm? Steve
McAllister quickly translated early success in the community newspaper business into a
formidable sports journalism career with the Canadian Press before moving into the
communications field at the NHL Players Association and before that at Tennis Canada,
where we first met and worked together as a former online sports editor at The Globe and
Mail and Yahoo Sports.
0:01:41
Steve believes the days of high-budget, personality-driven. Print journalism have perhaps
disappeared, but his comfort in dealing with community partners and media alike was the
basis for his success, both as a journalist and as a corporate communicator. Steve recently
wrapped up his latest composting at Bruce Power in King Kardon, Ontario, where he now
lives. I spoke to Steve from his home via Zoom.
3 - 0:02:12
And so it’s my great pleasure to welcome to Speaking of Media podcast, Mr Steve McAllister
Steve, who joins us from King Kardon, Ontario. How are we surviving this winter?
1 - 0:02:24
Steve, I’ve been incurred in the past. When you really can save the depths of winter and and
Speak Transcript & Insights - community-relations-in-a-covid-world-professional-
approaches-to-connecting
Created With By Speak
it had a true vibe to it. But covid aside, we we’ve escaped relatively Scott free and Twitter,
and to be honest I kind of miss it.
3 - 0:02:41
You know you’re really one of our one of our early guests on the podcast. You’re someone
who was really excelled on both sides of the media microphone, as I like to say both as a
journalist and then taking your skills from those days and applying them in some pretty
high profile roles. So I really appreciate taking the time and maybe you could just give a
quick background of how you kind of more from the journalism world over to
communications.
1 - 0:03:09
It’ll be 40 years, 40 years in May that I’ve worked. I work professionally. I left Ryerson’s
journalism school in the spring in 1981 and got my first reporting job in card news, but
I’ve always wanted to work and public relations and specially sports PR. At some point in
my life. But it took me, I guess 13 years to get there. But you know it was lucky enough to
spend 7 years at that weekly newspaper and then kind of got my big break in 1980.
0:03:30
Nineteen 88 when I went to the Canadian Press and was really fortunate to cover both
of them. Blue Jays World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993. I mean, they want the
highlights of my professional career had a chance to get in the PR at that point with an
organization that you’re very familiar with Tennis Canada and went to tennis. Cannon spent
less than a year there and then move to the NHLPA and with their through some pretty
exciting time spent about, I guess 6-7 years and on the public relations side and media relations
and doing some media training and then had a chance to get back into journalism in 2000
when I went to. Globe & Mail sports.
0:04:15
Out of urine. At the time, which I thought was the best job to have in the country, having the
opportunity to manage and be around the best collection of sportswriters in the country.
Got my feet wet and digital for seven years. When I went to Yahoo and in 2009 and with
the highlights being the opportunity to go to the Vancouver, London, and Sochi Olympic
Games started my own back consulting business with a good friend of mine, Colin Campbell.
When I left Yahoo in 2016, an opportunity come back to King Kardon two years ago.
0:04:46
Did to join Bruce Power and their corporate affairs. The Department my wife is, you know, is
Julius from King Kardon in our plan was always to move back up here eventually. I just
finished that contract at the end of December and. You know, kind of looking right now I’m
I’m. I’m 60 years old and I’m still pretty passionate about communications and working this business.
0:05:05
Speak Transcript & Insights - community-relations-in-a-covid-world-professional-
approaches-to-connecting
So I’m planning on working for a few more years yet.
3 - 0:05:14
Well, that's great, and that holds the description of you or I will say fantastic career, but
you've just described to our listeners are core listeners the kind of person that our audience really wants to listen to and hear. Sort of the frontline realities of the business and how communications these days is having to pivot to really do a better job of representing and
speaking on behalf of their organizations. No matter what kind they might be. Can you talk a
little bit about the kind of skills that communicators should be looking to be building on
these days? The environment is always changing, always evolving, but I think there’s
probably base skills, and there’s maybe some new skills that people should be really concentrating on in this sort of this new time for journalism and communication.
1 - 0:06:05
Flexibility has to be at the top of the list, and again, you look at the career path that you
taken in a different house that you’ve worn. And in my case. You know when I went to
journalism school as I’ve as an 18-year-old and way back in 1978. I mean my dream
was to one day cover the Toronto Maple Leafs or you know the PS Sportswriter and you
sit here for decades later and you'll see the way the world is changed. I mean, there are
obviously no cell phones back in 1981 there was nothing called the World Wide Web.
0:06:31
You know they weren’t even computers back then. I mean, I, I you know we as journalists were riots and you type your stories on a typewriter back then. And if you made a mistake,
you got the whiteout. But if you got the white-out and then major change that way so
there's been so much evolution and in the industry. But there’s still some basic principles.
0:06:55
I mean, I think at the top of that list is relationships. And you know, we could probably spend
2 podcasts just talking about how the relationships that I’ve I’ve had over 40 years in the
industry have helped me along my career path, and then also allowed me to do to do my
job. To you know what I think is a fairly high, fairly high level. I’ve done some teaching at
schools. I always tell him how my students, that right you have to be able to write, and even
if you want to be an on air personality, if you want to be Bob McCown or you want to be Bob
McKenzie, or you want to be James Duffy?
0:07:30
Or you want to be a producer like like a polygram at CSN? You still have to be able to. You
have to be able to write. That’s that’s the principle that I think is really, really important, and
then I think just being read, I’ve always told students like read as much as you can, and
and I think he said we we have more exposure than ever, although we've seen some door shut and some aspects of the media business see the strength of social media. Now we’re in
a good way.
Speak Transcript & Insights - community-relations-in-a-covid-world-professional-
approaches-to-connecting
Created With By Speak
0:07:57
And social media certainly been trash quite a bit lately. But you know, I look at LinkedIn, and I
I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn during the week now and get so much great information.
I’m going there and you know there are more books being read and an average are still good.
Really good magazines out there and it’s just a lot of good reading on online, so I would. I
would encourage young communications people that you can.
0:08:19
There’s a wealth of information available out there and you need to already created for.
3 - 0:08:29
It’s great to for people to hear that you are journalists or writers at heart as well. There’s also markets to actually continue to be writing and producing journalism on a broader. Scale beyond sort of a 15 or 22nd sound bite as well, so I guess the other big. The new element that we deal with these days is social media and it’s not so new. But the reality is that it does affect so many parts of communicating. Whether you're trying to represent or, I suppose,
balance their relationship around.
0:09:01
Trying to communicate on behalf of an organization, especially or if you’re trying to use it as
a communication tool to you know to, I guess, invested audiences or targeted audiences that are. Really already bought into what it is you’re doing.
1 - 0:09:21
Speak to us a little bit about you know your thoughts around social media and where it’s taken us and what we might need to consider moving forward. Yeah I I would say keep that
I. I think it probably is not long ago that companies like this social media and they hired some young guy out of school because they knew how to work a camera and you know
it was that there were we went through a phase was all about churning out content and I
think it’s a little more sophisticated now. Yeah. And also that those young people that there are more highly valued, more highly respected and people realize how much value social media and good social media. I think you bring to a company now. I’ll give you a
pretty example.
0:10:02
I think for me, the last two years, especially the last year at Bruce Power and with the Covid pandemic, social media became really important for Bruce Power. I think reputationally because we were, we were taking a bit of a head when Covid first truck and we have a
lot. We have 6000 people that work at Bruce Power up here and there was a feeling that we weren’t being nimble enough. And you know getting workers properly outfitted or or
trying to cut back on some of the work we were doing to take proper precautions against the pandemic. And I think James Cognac, who’s our Executive Vice president of Corporate
Affairs and Operational services.
0:10:40
He deserves a lot of credit for this. He right away we got very involved with the community and we donated about over the course of three or four months. Half $1,000,000 of food banks with the support of our supply chain. You know we announced early in April, the
premiere for Donna on a radio show in Owen Sound with our President, CEO Mike Rent.
Check that we were going to donate 250,000 pieces of protective personal equipment right away and since then we've done it.
0:11:04
I think it’s over two and a half million pieces of PPE. Over the life of the pandemic, and I
think social media really gave us a chance to tap into our audience and then let them know that we were doing. We were being community leaders and
then Bruce Power, probably in a normal year, was spent over $2,000,000 on sponsoring
sports teams and organizations and national programs like the Branching for Foundation of
Canada. And I think I thought social media gave us a chance to really reflect our status as a commuter good community. It isn't an at the same time we've done work very closely with the Grey Bruce Public Health Unit, where going back to March and we've probably done about five or six of these things.
0:11:51
Now we hosted virtual town halls with Doctor Ian Era, who was the Chief Medical officer
for the health unit up here, and had that broadcasted on radio stations across
Western Ontario. And I'll get that information out to people in the community is about
protecting themselves against covid
3 - 0:12:13
so I mean, that’s a great. Those are all great examples of how community relations can really drive, certainly positive promotional type communications. How about on the on? The on
the more critical side? So social media is you're saying you felt the pressure in the early days of the pandemic? How much credence do you put into social media?
0:12:35
How you sort of feel or provide criteria against social media to determine you know?
However, if you move forward with something when you're sensing resistance,
or I guess identifying issues that you may not otherwise been aware of,
1 - 0:12:54
the one thing that social media can do keep as it can amplify your voice and amplify the
vision and the mission of your company and your values, and I think the one thing we we
weren't, I would say Bruce Power probably wasn’t as proactive as it should have been on
social media for different reasons until the pandemic. Came along and I think the one thing
that that I tried to bring their social media accounts especially on Twitter and Facebook, is
that you know we have a real connection with the community. So things like you know,
sharing, sharing tweets or sharing social media posts by local councils or local companies.
So the public health units for the, for the firefighters. Or you know we we we sponsor
Wounded Warriors Canada.
0:13:36
It’s just basic things like sharing their tweet. I think it’s an extension of those sponsorship programs that shows them. It shows the people around us, said Bruce Power doesn’t just
write a check for somebody and just, you know, the figure that they've done their duty.
There’s a real connection attachment to these organizations and I, I think the response that’s been really overwhelming and it also allows us to tap into different audiences.
Audiences, too. I like most of the resistance, or we got in the beginning of the pandemic was from on Facebook, where we have a lot of former employees.
0:14:12
And as you know, Facebook is a bit of an aging, aging audience. And that’s where we’re
getting much. A lot of pushback and we were able to speak directly to that audience. I think that’s one thing that’s really important about. Social media can’t just be copy and paste.
0:14:27
Where you take a picture or video clip or a graphic and use the same words on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. It has to be this very specific. Teaches all social
social media channels. So I I I think the one thing that pandemics allowed us to do is it really is. It’s almost. And again, this might not be the right phrase, but it it does feel to me that we boost power.
0:14:51
Has Marvel human face because of what we have done in covert, and I think we’ve been able to reflect that Bruce powers more than a company is. It's 6000 employees on our social media network. It’s it’s it’s great and I you know I've seen that and I applaud what's been done in the community up there and it’s such a big part of
3 - 0:15:15
the community in terms of being basically the major employer. I wanted to talk to you about successful media relationships, so their relations generally as we're talking about great insights there. You come from a pretty active personal sports background as well as a great great experience in sports media. And I guess there are people who would argue that
dealing with the sports reporters may be different than dealing with a consumer Reporter or. You know a bulldog Reporter on the investigative front or whatever.
1 - 0:15:46
Any hints or insights into trying to build solid media relationships with frontline reporters
and editors? We are a relationship with a Reporter. Keep their or an editor is really no
different than a relationship you have with the spouse or friend. I mean there has to be a
mutual trust and it has to be some give and take and it can’t always be you. As a communications person, calling Reporter and expecting them to him or her to write. Write a
story that you that you pitch the relationship.
0:16:14
Things are very important and I would say from a career standpoint Keith I mean where we live in a time where. The days are long gone, where someone’s going to work for
company extra 35 years and most of us. I think I’ve worked at 10 different places in my
career. If you had said that 30 years ago, you would say, well, Jesus temic else or he can't hold a job, I’d like to think that you look at 2021 and you say Jesus, you'll see McAllister had a pretty neat career and work that has some pretty great gigs. And I think that that’s what the minds of a young person should be now is that, you know, even if they happen to
get into that.
0:16:52
Ground-level with me please for certain payment out of school. They probably don’t want to be there 25 years now with very very rare. Some exceptions. Do you go looking for reporters to have those relationships with or do they? Do they become obvious who those
Do reporters need to be that you have sort of closer ongoing contact with?
0:17:10
Yeah, I think that again depends. Like obviously you and I both worked at Tennis Canada,
so in those days you obviously it was important to have a good relationship with someone
like Tom’s habit, who was spreading on tennis on a regular basis for the Globe and
Mail and when the was known as the Rogers Cup tournaments. Now we’re we’re in
Toronto, you wanted to make sure that you had good relationship with the gym Van
Horn at TSN, and Peter Burwash, who was doing color commentary or Tracy Austin you you
click with her. Weather Reporter that there’s a trust factor there in a likeability factor. Ann
and I think you know, we have to respect people like.
0:17:54
I remember when I worked at the NHL, PA Larry Brooks, who still covers hockey for the New
York Post. Larry was very anti-NHL PA during the lockout in 1994 and you know didn’t
have a lot of use for what what the Players Association had to say during during collective
bargaining. But I would take Larry’s phone call every time and and even when the locker
dented, he and I would. We were talking on the phone for half an hour. Some days Larry was
a guy that I could have an open and honest conversation with him.
0:18:22
We went out my. I know we didn’t always like what each other had to say, but at least their
respect was there and I know that Larry would write a more informed column because
he had given him the opportunity to speak, speak with that with me about the players
association side on the issue.
3 - 0:18:42
When times are tough, those Steve. We talked a little bit and we've related a little bit around organizations. Sort of going into a shell and shutting down, and I guess for
communicators it’s often having to deal with senior executives or leaders who are either
concerned or hesitant or dismissive of public scrutiny from the media or from
stakeholders that they may have to deal with. And so on. And I know that I know you've got
some particular opinions about this, but I’m I’m always trying to.
0:19:14
Push the idea that especially now in sort of a social media era, there’s got to be an effort to try to be more authentic and more open to the point that makes sense for your organization. But certainly shutting down has never worked very well,
1 - 0:19:30
and I think nowadays it’s maybe even more damaging if you go down that route. Yeah,
absolutely. And let’s face it, if you're young communications person, I mean you're going to have a real difficult time changing the senior executive client. I don’t even in public relations,
media relations for a year, and Bob Goodnow hired me, the NHL PA. So I would say 90% of
the time Bob wasn’t listening to me and Bob wasn’t really media friendly, which made me believe that I was even more valuable to the Players Association because I was going to be
the guy who you know could smooth things over. Or I was going to be the guy that reporters were.
0:20:04
I’m talking you talking to and also that they probably weren’t going to have a lot of
access to Bob Ann anyway. And you know, one of my pet peeves these days and we were talking before the podcast kisses, you know, Once Upon a time, no. No comment for me was inexcusable, like I would never, ever as a media relations person, be quote in Astoria,
saying no comment, but we've gone. We've gone downhill. Now to the point where it was seen as more and more. Where, uh, I read. I read stories and I read them every day where a
company or an organization or politician or somebody.
0:20:37
Is it a story where they didn’t respond to the request for energy and I just think that’s completely excusable? My communication standpoint and from from the standpoint of
someone running a business or running a company and I’ll tell you when I worked at the NHL PA, one of the most important, if not the most important thing I did
during the lockout 1994, which is really, really, really busy. This was before cell phones, but I
would walk around the office every day with a stack of pink slips and it was messages that were taken from me to callback reporters and I wouldn’t. Leave the office so I wouldn’t go to bed at night till every one of those phone calls has been returned, even if it was a
case where I called Keith Barnett from the Newark Times Ledger and said you know, he just said there’s nothing going on today. I have nothing to report because as far as I was concerned, that’s part of the job and I don’t think that that’s changed or should have changed since 19,94, so that’s a big issue for me and I yeah if you're young communicator person, you want to build relationships.
0:21:50
You've got to be willing to return a phone call or return an email both in good times and bad.
3 - 0:21:58
I think I’m always trying to impress upon communicators that you need to be able to
anticipate issues that are going to cause you concerns,
1 - 0:22:06
issues, maybe crises, and really be prepared for those whenever. That’s a great point, Keith.
And it comes back to the reading again and something that I've done as long as I work
communications, I used to spend the first half-hour my morning when I’m having my coffee
and I log in on my computer is going through what media websites and going through
Twitter feed to see what’s out there. And again, you're absolutely right, it might be
something that you might have to react with. Your boss is that there might be something that's longer term, but that’s where. You know, I think that's the one one of the
dudes about Twitter is that you can really follow in real-time.
0:22:43
Now what's happening in the news. And that’s not a luxury that you and I had as young communications people. So that’s really important, and I think your point about it. You're being able to react. When you get that email from reported, there’s no reason why you can’t
get back to the Reporter right away and say what’s your deadline on this story.
0:23:02
So again, because as we both know reporters, they use Twitter announcement through their content or the copies, not just appearing in a newspaper or on a news passes that
could appear on Twitter right away as well. So if you react right away and say what time do you need this by and then, if it’s 5:00 o'clock, then you know what the timeline is, it you
tell him? OK? Well, Ill get don’t worry, I'll get back to you by before 5:00 o'clock. And
then it’s really incumbent on the communications person to talk to the people that need to talk to and make sure they just let deliver on that.
0:23:31
I do not promise, you know, the worst thing is if you don't respond and all of a sudden so and
so puts on Twitter that they send you an email 4 hours ago and they're still waiting for
a response. I mean to me, that’s the ultimate embarrassment as a communications person.
3 - 0:23:53
And I think that again, you and I both having been in this situation, being sort of that go-between when it comes to difficult stories. Especially, I always say that it’s great, you know,
Speak Transcript & Insights - community-relations-in-a-covid-world-professional-
approaches-to-connecting to have our own social media channels, but the strength of the media carries on because as
a third party, or as a separate party from from from the audiences, I guess that you
control media perspective and media commentary on what it is that you’re doing still
matters. And you know, again, I think a lot of communicators can find themselves in difficult situations. That’s part of the profession and being able to deliver good messages outside the organization is one thing, but also being able to speak truth to power and to be able to
represent back what it means, not to communicate well to people who are hesitant
within the organizations is a tricky part of journalism and of communications. And, you
know, it’s really where your mettle is tested when it comes to being.
1 - 0:24:54
Professional, yeah, I think he just one of the areas where for some reason I don’t know if you've seen this, but I I worked for some very very smart people from the smartest people around. And yet there are totally scared of the media and I I just don’t understand that. I
mean, if you’re if you're in an executive position, if you’re a presidency, or if you’re a vice
president or you’re an executive director used, you’re very well equipped to deal with tough
questions from Reporter. I mean, I people like you and I can help. Help manage that to some point, but authentic you’re right, authentic is right.
0:25:26
Word is that you want you want to be truthful when you talk to before you want to provide as much information as you can. You can educate a Reporter, for example like nuclear power, like I knew I’ve learned so much about nuclear energy in the last two years, and I
spent five years working at the Concard news, and so, you know, sometimes you do need to
educate, educate reporters, and also you have to. You have to prioritize if you’re if you have someone who’s. During the nuclear beat or whatever, be the education beat or whatever it
is on a daily basis, you absolutely need to have mutual respect and a great relationship with that person because you are going to do with them every day. On the other hand,
doesn’t mean that you ignore other people, because, again, you and I come from.
0:26:13
I think he’s like, like myself, you started your career at a small newspaper, a small radio station and boil boy like I’ve come. I’ve covered a lot of high school athletes and.
Rubbed elbows with a lot of people in my profession who started as you know, small-town papers and radio stations or TV stations and there are there are some of the most influential media people are executives on the planet now. Amazing who you
meet along along the way and and those relationships will ultimately help you down the road. So communicators who are listening to this podcast,
3 - 0:26:51
they’re going to run into media outlets, newspapers, probably more than anything else,
sometimes radio. They’re going to run into. Outlets that are pretty trim on personnel and editorial staff anyways, what should the mindset of a communicator be when that’s the reality of the majority of the outlets that they deal with on a regular basis?
1 - 0:27:11
Yeah, that’s a great question key. So because of that, because you’re going to have a lot
more general reporters now, then you have the reporters this year you are going to
have to hold their hands and at the same time there’s an opportunity to educate those
reporters about your company. Whether you’re you know you’re selling. Soda popper or beer or nuclear power? Or, you know, Western University. You know you have an
opportunity, but also an obligation to help teach at recording is the one thing that.
0:27:38
You know, I used to read this or hear this about the Olympics live where Olympic athletes rose. Olympic people were really getting upset because reporters didn’t know a lot about their sport when they went to in Olympics and what they forgot is that there are only a handful of people covering at the time. Amateur sport as a full-time beat. So you had a lot of these
sports reporters who would go to the Olympics and just haven’t had the time to properly prepare. And again I think was missed opportunity.
0:28:11
A lot of those athletes and their national sports governing bodies that you know just take
the time to educate them on the sport and reporters. Report for the appreciate it would end up getting a better story.
3 - 0:28:28
My sense, and as we’re looking like we’re moving more directly into a sort of a more of a
pandemic posture that more and more mid range and smaller sized companies are investing
now in communications that the need wasn’t always there, especially those who are
business to business who don’t necessarily have a big public presence or whatever.
1 - 0:28:51
Just your impression, generally of what communications needs to be a value that communications departments and personnel bring to the running of a successful organization or company. Yeah, I, I think it’s Keith is just as key to is key to shining a light on
a company on on the business on the people on what they do on what, what they stand for
you. I’m actually glad like I just throw me to see if they go on LinkedIn every day and see the number of communications jobs that are out there right now across all levels because it
it is an important function and in my sense is that companies to finally realize that having communications and marketing is one. You know, one Department or having a community.
Never made sense to me to see a job for a communication and marketing manager or
communications and marketing director, because for me those are two completely different to two completely different fields of expertise. And I so I do think you know you have to
have communications people who can work, work with their executives to make sure that
they can properly convey their message and end against something as simple as teaching
expected is how to speak to Reporter because we don’t, we don’t see, tend to see a lot
of that with small and medium companies.
0:30:10
And we need to. We need to help those exact really smart executives get out, be able to get beyond that fear factor and. Be able to do all the media and I think the other key does. I
think it’s really important if I if I have a company today, I’ve got some kind of social media.
You have to have a strong social media person who knows either knows how to tell
stories or it can work closely with that communications person and use the different tools or are to make sure that you’re effectively telling those stories about your business.
3 - 0:30:46
Again, it’s something that’s not really news to us, but something that I think we’re seeing
more and more of a buy into when it comes to companies that weren’t necessarily
previously investing in that when you look back on your career when I look back at where
our careers sort of crossed, I mean we were pretty lucky people we were able to get
involved with sectors and get behind the scenes of places that we had real passions for. And
what do you say to people who are? Perhaps in journalism, but more likely heading towards
a communications karere or maybe early on in a career somewhere right now in terms of
you know what the possibilities are and what you know, what they might be able to do with
their future.
1 - 0:31:32
Going down a communications route? Yeah, I still really thank you that you can. You can
have successful careers. You’re absolutely right. I think for I tell people a lot now. Especially with the past year that I, I really feel like I’m part of that last generation of of sports media.
0:31:46
People who were lucky to have been working in the business at a time where you know they were still really. Extravagance maybe not the right word, but we had extensive travel
budgets. I mean I I had $1,000,000 travel budgets as sports at the Globe and Mail and we
would send Steven Brunton, Dave Naylor the Super Bowl every year and we would send
Nailer and Bruntnell Mackie every Grey Cup and we always send Jeff Blair and Larry Nelson to the World Series and we sent 9 or 10 reporters to the Olympics. Mean those days is gone for now and I don’t know if he’ll ever come back so I feel lucky in that regard. But I also think there’s a lot of opportunities out there I need.
0:32:26
I see a lot of young reporters who are are doing their own podcasts and one benefit that today’s young people have that you and I didn’t Keith is there. There are you know the
YouTube and Instagram Zentic Coxon and length end and podcasting and they were those people. They’ve kind of replaced the Kincardine News and the Georgetown Independent and CCP are radio in Barrie. See connection Wingham so there are opportunities to cut your teeth. I’m going down a different path.
0:33:00
There are lot of opportunities out there and I would I would say don’t. You know, don’t box yourself in. Don’t don’t say that if you you know if you can’t be a City Hall reported the
Toronto star, you’re, you know you’re never gonna work in journalism or you’re going to go find something completely different, do I? I do think that there are opportunities out there.
3 - 0:33:22
Steve, I really want to thank you for your time. You’re always very gracious with it. You’ve
always got great stories and great examples to kind of paint the communications picture for us out there from both corporate as well as sort of a more broadly journalism and public basis. So I know that you’re very, very generous with your time and your experience in All in all areas of communication. And I’m also hopeful that despite the retirement tag that you carry on and keep. You know, contributing as you do locally, and more broadly to communications, and I know the sports community loves you as well.
0:33:57
And so again, thanks a lot for being on the show today.
1 - 0:34:05
Thank you, I appreciate that and it’s fantastic that you’re doing this. Speaking of a Media podcast, I think that you know someone with your background and the relationships that you have that can bring guests on this show. It’s definitely something that’s going to help young communications people and I look forward to going on linked in one day and seeing someone say, you know? Thanks to Keith Marnoch, and now I’m now in a senior communications role somewhere, so I really appreciate you having me on the podcast.
Outstanding thanks so much, Steve. Thank you. And so there you have an educated frontline impression of media coverage and media relations from someone who has seen the business from a national and international viewpoint.
2 - 0:34:46
But one that was also very much rooted in small-town beginnings and values in a career that has proven to be a tremendous success. Our thanks again to Steve McAllister as we have considered in other episodes the ideals of being authentic and open to media connection continued in this show these days. You simply cannot avoid media scrutiny. But you and your leaders don’t need to fear that scrutiny either, especially if you have a great story to tell.
When it comes to building media relationships and also reaching out to connect with those who are either in close geographical proximity or those who hold similar values, it is never too early to build strategic and sensible partnerships. We hope to keep bringing you the best
in the business from both sides of the media microphone.
0:35:27
Who will help you better develop and deliver your messages and stories? If you have a
suggestion for a topic or guest, we would love to hear from you. Drop us a comment here or inside our Speaking of media communicators discussion group on Facebook. And wherever
you find your podcasts, I hope you will continue to listen like, comment, and subscribe to
Speaking of Media as that will help us expand our shows, reach and attract quality content.
You can now listen to Speaking of media on YouTube.
0:35:59
Just search our name. You’ll also find us on Instagram. LinkedIn under my profile, and on
Twitter at Media speaking. I’m Keith Marnoch and through other episodes. I look forward to the next time when we will be Speaking of media.
