What Is Publicity?

• Publicity is a subset of PR.
• Publicity is the only PR tactic that relays information to a "gatekeeper" audience -the media -in order to get to the larger audience: the public.
• The direct audience for publicity is the media most important to the client's objectives.
• A person who works in publicity is called a publicist.
• A publicist in jazz usually works with a record label, an artist or an organization to get their information to the media that covers jazz: reviewers, critics, writers, radio programmers, television producers, internet editors, etc.
• Record labels often have staff publicists who hire independent publicists to focus on specific artists and CDs, because there is too much work for the label's publicist.
• Independent publicists -like myself -are consultants to the label, artist or organization for agreed-upon periods of time and money.
• Whoever hires -and pays -the independent publicist is the direct client.
• The publicist's goal is to get the client's information to the media in order to obtain coverage for the client and its CD, show, event, etc.
• "Coverage" for jazz can mean a CD review, a show review or preview, an interview feature story, a radio interview, a TV appearance, etc.

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