Meet The Press: Q&A with Kelly Will of The New York Post (PART TWO)
If you missed PART ONE of this interview, click here to read it first…
PART 2 – Freelancing, Tech, PR & More:
Alyson Campbell: So, your personal blog, Blonde Rules, when did you start that blog and what do you use it for now?
Kelly Will: Honestly, its 100 percent personal. Its truly for friends and family to know where I am, who I’m interviewing, and what I’m doing at any given time. Because obviously, I travel and I do a lot of different things in any given monthly period. It’s hard to make sure my mom tells my aunts or my cousins. It’s strictly for fun to let my family and friends know where I am and what I’m up to!
AC: And what was it like contributing to The Moment Blog for The New York Times?
KW: It was fantastic. I strictly did it for Sundance. I would love to work with them again. I considered doing Sundance again this year, but frankly its very cold and I can barely take the cold here. It’s a different kind of cold in Sundance. It was so much fun, but I actually decided I’m going to go to LA to do my New York Post column for a week instead.
AC: That sounds like an excellent plan. What was the New York Times like as an organization? Were you working in-house or did you do it from your own space?
KW: I did it from the slopes of Park City. Strictly from the slopes.
AC: So you didn’t get to absorb a lot of the corporate culture?
KW: No, and that’s sort of the upside and downside of being a freelancer, doing what I do. Chris Rovzar from New York Magazine is a really good friend and Chris is constantly going into the office everyday. So, he’ll work from home in the morning blogging daily Intel and then he goes into the office in the afternoon. I’m sort of the opposite of him. I stop by The New York Post office every few weeks. Pick up magazines, say hi to my editor, say hi to friends and anytime they have group things, I love to get together, but I love the freedom of my time truly being my own and that I can work while I’m doing laundry around the corner. You know, I can grab breakfast with a really good friend and easily accomplish my work in the day. I was always in an office, especially at Star, and I remember thinking “ oh there’s so much at home I need to be doing and I could totally do it all in between working, ugh this is so hard!!!” …and that’s what celebrity gossip allows you to do.
Alyson: You’re like me then, you find it easier to “get in the zone” from your own space…
KW: I do. And I don’t think freelancing is for everyone by any means. In fact I think it’s for fewer people. A lot of people think they can do it and they can’t. You really have to keep track of everything. Keeping track of your own taxes, your own health care, and just in general making sure you have enough work to pay the bills. But even more than that, when at home you have so many more great distractions. There’s DVR now and my DVR is always full with something I could be watching. I find with the invention of the blackberry and laptop, I can be productive from anywhere. I can close a column from the treadmill or the bike at the gym.
AC: Alright, so let me switch it up a bit. First of all, do you use twitter? Do you twitter at all?
KW: I don’t and Gregory Littley (I hope that his Google Alert just pinged when I said his last name!), I hope he’s reading this because I cannot stand Twitter! Gregory Littley is my best friend as most people know. In fact, they started to think that we couldn’t go anywhere without the other. He loves twitter; he loves the idea of it. I personally can’t stand it. I think blogging for me has already dumbed down my writing skills as far as it just being a quick thought, a paragraph. I make the effort to spell everything properly and make sure my sentences are proper and twitter really takes that to the next level. It’s like a half thought, an incomplete sentence for a thought. Honestly, I don’t think that people need to know what I’m doing every second of the day. I’m already on Facebook, I have a blog. There are so many ways to know what I’m doing and I think twitter is sort of a selfish place. People just seem to want to self-promote more and more, and I don’t really think people care what I’m doing every second of the day.
AC: That’s what kept me from signing up for a good 6-9 months. because I just thought “oh my gosh I don’t know if I can be that incredibly self indulgent to assume that people need to know my status every half hour.” As a publicist, I’ve been benefiting, though, because there are a ton of journalists on Twitter that are using it as a tool to source stories. I’ve also since learned that it’s about providing value to your audience. I learn so much from my tweeps every day!
KW: That’s wonderful and if that’s what any one person is using it for, that’s great. If you want to twitter about your minute-to-minute trek through the snow, that’s fine and you can go ahead and do that. I do think that’s great to have it used in the way you mentioned and I think Facebook is another example of how helpful these new internet sites have become. Similarly on Facebook, I have actually communicated with people for work-related reasons instead of just basic email – because I might not have their email, but I can track them down on FB. I definitely see the benefits.
AC: So do you mind being approached from a professional standpoint on Facebook? I know there’s a lot of talk about the blur between what’s your personal time and what’s your professional time. Do you get anyone soliciting you in that way?
KW: I do and honestly I do prefer things to come through email, but I also understand that not everyone has my email. So, if this is the best way you can find me, then I’m totally ok with that and I’ll usually just forward a note to myself. My life is organized through my Gmail account. Gmail is the greatest invention. I truly believe it’s the best email server possible and I could not survive without Gmail. So, I think it’s fine. If you want to contact me through Facebook, contact me. If I can use something you’re sending me I’ll use it and if I can’t, I can’t. It’s ok with me.
AC: Ok. So, you may have answered my next question. I was curious from a journalistic standpoint if you’ve noticed a shift within traditional media? Maybe some of your mentors who were used to the scene before social media became so huge are feeling it? Have you noticed a shift and are you ever expected on the job to implement any of these other skills or tools? Do you think any of your colleagues are encouraged to do these things or is it kind of ‘to each his own’ however you do your job, just do your job?
KW: I think it is ‘to each his own’ but I also think if you are on Facebook, it does benefit you to be on and fairly active. Personally, I’ve even questioned my non-use of twitter and I think “Am I really missing out on something, should I be on twitter?” and then I think “I don’t have the time to be on another one of these things!” I don’t want the stress. For me, if I’m not updating something at least weekly let alone on twitter every 30 minutes or something I feel like I’m behind and I don’t like that feeling. I do think that using everything at your fingertips that is available can only benefit you. If you’re using it for work, play, as a combined effort I think it can only benefit you.
AC: Maybe you want to use Twitter to say something like “Who’s at Sundance this week, talk to me?” People search twitter by ‘hot topic’ conversation threads so maybe it would help? I really hesitated to join the conversation myself, and now, just like you talk about your love for Gmail, Twitter is what I’m advocating! At least consider it! I’m on Gregory’s team.
KW: I’ll consider it. I’ll consider twitter. I also think the word twitter just sounds like a dirty, sexual game. It just sounds funny and I always joke about that with Greg.
AC: OK, I’m done with my sales pitch! Lets just talk about publicists a little bit. Do you get pitched on a daily or weekly basis by a ton of publicists? Do you get pitched because you’re writing such & such a column by such & such a paper? Do you get pitched because you have a warm network of publicists who know you personally, so they email you at Gmail? Or, do you get blind pitches through being in some kind of media database?
KW: I would say it’s mainly from my network and my specific contacts. Secondary is where I’m almost blindly hit up for different things that people want me to cover. Most things that I’m invited to are from my built up network of contacts and friends. Usually when someone hits me up for attending an event, covering their new product or party, interviewing someone… it’s actually somebody who has heard of me from a friend of mine that has recommended me. I have a nice network that I really do rely on and I do get pitched to daily. Definitely daily. Many daily.
AC: So with the left field cold pitches, do you have any feedback on what publicists do that’s inappropriate or frustrating?
KW: First, I would say that I do my best to reply to everyone. No matter what, I try to never ignore an email, no matter how far off base it may be. If it’s a personal email then I’m never going to ignore you. It may take me a day or two to respond because I’m ambushed with stuff or I really don’t know how to respond so I have to sit on it for a day or two to figure out how to kindly say that I can’t use this but in the future let’s talk and this is what my beat is. Something I don’t need and that I get a lot of is Fashion. I’m on tons of PR lists as a fashion contact and it’s just a rundown of somebody wore something. Say any old fashion designer, I get emails all the time that are like “Kelly Rutherford was seen in this Dolce & Gabbana dress”. Now, I’m not going to respond to that because it’s a mass email and I’m not on a fashion beat and people that know me would never really send that to me. So those kinds of things I don’t respond to. As long as it’s a personal email that’s addressed to me that seems like someone took the time to get my email and seek me out for help, I’ll respond.
A lot of people don’t realize what it takes to make a gossip item. I think the anatomy of a gossip item is hard for some publicists to understand. That, or they know exactly what the anatomy of a gossip item is but they’re praying that I will bite on what they’re trying to sell me without having the proper anatomy. I understand where they’re coming from and it never upsets me. So it’s fine, I welcome those emails, I don’t care at all and I’ll just simply say unfortunately there’s no real lead in this. A lead in a gossip item is some simple juicy tidbit. I would prefer if it was positive.
Jeremy Piven just quit Speed the Plow and I got a tip from a friend who knew David Mamma and he wasn’t really happy with Jeremy from day one and I thought, “Well, this is a great item and there’s just so much truth to this I’m going to run with it.” It just takes one simple nugget of an interesting something. You know like, Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal, if they’re shopping in a store that you rep and you let me know that Jake came in with Reese over the weekend and they bought clothes for a little boy and a little girl and they were holding hands and very sweet. That actually is an item because they’re two A-listers. Anytime you combine celebrities it’s a gem of an item. People just want to know what a simple day in the life is, really.
AC: So, what do you love and hate about PR people?
KW: I don’t hate anything. Hate is not a word in my vocabulary. What do I love about publicists? They’ve made my career. I mean, without PR there is very little celebrity news. Whether its personal publicists or event publicists or product publicists, it doesn’t matter really…all publicists have in some way helped me along the way–every single step of the way. It’s just a give and take. I try to help as many people as possible. If you’re a publicist and I can do a favor for you, I will in a heartbeat. Sometimes I do go to them. I go to some people more frequently because they’re close friends of mine and I say “I really need help, I’m a little short this week, please help!” But, I never trade gossip. I never say I’m going to give you this for that. I just try to be really nice, really straightforward, with this is what I need this week and if you have it, send it to me, and if I can use it, I absolutely will. If it’s tied to a product you’re working on, I’m absolutely going to mention the product as long as it has relevance to where I interviewed that person or anything like that. I think that its important that I rub your back and you rub mine. It’s a hugely important synergy. I don’t think I could do my job without publicists. Well maybe that’s not true. Maybe I could do my job but my quality of life would be so horrible because I’d never sleep, I’d frequent every celebrity known restaurant, I would frequent every single club. I mean, it would just be so difficult. I have friends that are not publicists who also help me on a daily basis. I just consider everyone in my network, friends. I really do. For the most part everybody’s my friend. I treat you like a friend (I hope) and I do my best to be honest. I think its an important friendship. I really can’t say anything negative about publicists. If you flood my inbox with emails, that’s ok. If it comes to a point where you’re sending me one email after another that’s just not relevant, I will find the nicest way I can to tell you.
AC: You know what, sometimes we just get that simple “not interested” email and then we go, “Ok, this is not her beat, let’s make sure this she is removed from this list.” I love that more than a ‘no reply’ whatsoever. Just a simple “thanks but no thanks” is appreciated from a PR perspective.
KW: I think follow-through is the most important thing in any relationship that you have both personally and professionally. I hope that I’ve been able to do that for most people and that’s always my goal. I never want to leave anyone hanging . If I can’t use something, I hope that I tell you and if I can, by all means you’re gonna know that I can. I’m going to do my best to let you know what issue its going to run in and exactly what day… make sure you pick it up and I’m going to remind you a few times because I want other people to benefit.
AC: That’s really awesome to hear.
KW: Well, I think you’re only as good as your contacts, friends, and relationships. I know that without all those things I would not have a career. I would not still be living in New York City, I would not be writing a gossip column for the New York Post. I would be nothing without my relationships.
AC: Ultimately, how do you think you got to live a life that you love?
KW: My parents are the true reason for all of my success. They pretty much blindly support me no matter what and they give me the greatest advice, especially in tough times.
AC: Very cool. Well that ends the formal part of my questions. Thank you so much for your insight, Kelly!
*Kelly Will with Ana Ortiz at the Men’s Final at the 2008 U.S. Open
[Alyson Campbell for It's All Very PR]
Tags: Alyson Campbell, AMP3 pr, It's All Very PR, Kelly Will, New York Post, Twitter