Advice from the PR Pros: Gary Weitman

The Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication has conducted oral history interviews with dozens of the nation’s most influential public relations practitioners. The Page Center website features a vast collection of transcripts and videos of these interviews. On this blog, we will highlight some of the advice given by professionals on attaining positions in the field of public relations.

Gary Weitman is the senior vice president of corporate relations for the Tribune Company, and he has served as the company’s chief communication officer since late 2007. He is responsible for the company’s internal and external communications, including media relations, employee communications, company publications, speechwriting, the company’s intranet site and the tribune.com website.

Weitman served 11 years in broadcast journalism at WBBM-TV, Chicago. From 1994 to 1997, he was managing editor, responsible for the direction and editorial content of news broadcasts. Before that, he held several broadcast management roles, including executive producer, investigative producer and political affairs producer. He also served two years at WFLD-TV, Chicago, as executive producer of “Fox News Chicago.”

Journalism and public relations: We’re not so different, you and I

“I had a great career in journalism. I really, truly enjoyed it. I got to cover some big events. Went to the Olympics, covered presidential campaigns—enjoyed it thoroughly.”

“As I hit 40, I looked around the newsroom one day… and I noticed that most of the people in the room were vastly younger than I was. And I decided that I needed to try and see what life was like outside the newsroom and outside television.”

“For somebody in television journalism like myself, really public relations existed as the embodiment of a voice on the other end of a phone trying to get me to cover a news event or a public relations event or marketing event that I hadn’t either the inclination or the resources to go cover. I thought to myself, oh God I don’t want to be the voice at the other end of that phone.”

“I found out as I did my due diligence, that public relations was so much more than cold calling people to come to a marketing event. I wound up, I think, being equally fortunate in making the transition to public relations.”

“I like to think that one of the things that prepared me for being at H&K (Hill & Knowlton Strategies) was the grounding I got in journalism; in being able to think quickly on my feet, being able to try and anticipate where a news story would go next, because as a manager in a newsroom, I had to do those things.”

“I had to plot out where we were going to take a story next. As the managing director for media relations at H&K, I think that kind of training and those kinds of experiences prepared me to make a pretty good transition into PR and into the communications field.”