Welcome to the “Wild West.” This by far is my favorite expression to describe the Internet.
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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – When I launched HealthNewsDigest.com on July 1st, 1999 I had 15 readers. Seven months later I was asked to make a presentation to 9 bankers seeking 3 Million dollars in financing! The next day my financial advisor called to tell me that we were not seeking enough money – the bankers were looking for larger investments. Our next presentation would be for 5 Million dollars!
In mid-March of 2000, the Internet bubble burst! In June, it almost went belly-up and we saw many heavily-financed companies go out of business. This was all just a normal procedure, I told myself…a new industry shaking out.
Back in the late 90’s you could compare the Internet with the San Francisco gold rush. If someone struck gold on a very small parcel of land, it would surely be an indication that you were in a gold field. So went the thinking. So, it made perfectly good sense to buy all of the land around it. The Health Industry was touted as being one of the premiere areas to invest in. Thank you God!
So, what ’s it like to publish an online news magazine? Or, ezine, if you prefer. Consider first that we receive over 3,000 emails per day. Over 1,000 of them are legitimate news items, mainly press releases, articles submitted for review, health tips, research papers, etc. An additional 2,000 emails are spam, which for the most part are seperated by Google email service. Thank God. When I tell people how much mail we receive daily, their first question usually is, “Do you read them all.” The answer is that I read Headlines. Spam is deleted when it gets in the hundreds, and legitimate news is read, for the most part, as it comes in. So, for all of you PR people reading this, make sure that your headline is to the point. Also of importance is the first paragraph after your submission is clicked on to open. On any given day we publish 10-20 submissions, or more than 400 per month, making us the largest health-news content site.
The day normally begins at 7am and continues to about midnight. Seven days a week. I break it up with a two-mile walk everyday, and many mental health-breaks during the day. I attend press conferences, make calls to news sources, handle about 10 phone calls per day. Don’t feel sorry for me. I absolutely love this job.
News is submitted by all major medical schools, universities, government agencies, non-profits, pr agencies, associations and corporations in the health field. In addition, we have “stringers” all over the country covering key conventions, and special events. On Sundays, we send out a “Blast” to tens-of-thousands of subscribers, over 2,000 health industry journalists who subscribe, and numerous major news syndicates who pick up all of our stories. On average, our news is picked-up by approximately 4,000 health-related websites. We allow all media to take our stories, so we also land on tv news, radio, magazines and television shows. Currently, tens-of-thousands of health-related stories are live somewhere. If you’re an advertiser, you automatically appear on all of them!
By now, you may be thinking that we have a huge office with people running around in a frenzy of news-gathering. Thank God, that is not the case. We all work out of our own homes and apartments! From writers, columnists, and technicians. Every time I think or say the preceding I break into a big smile, mainly from all of the rent money that I am not spending. And, oh yes…those rainy and snowy days that I look out of my apartment window in Manhattan and watch my neighbors trying to catch a cab. Life on the internet is wonderful. I know. I use to have 10 full-time television production professionals on salary, in a large and expensive office on Madison Avenue. For most of my business life I was a television producer of commercials and syndicated shows. We still have a television division, HealthyTelevisionProductions that creates, produces and distributes some of the most effective campaigns for television, cable and radio.
Monday mornings also bring a special treat. That’s when, bright and early in the morning, I get a phone call from London, from a pr woman who speaks the King’s English. It is a pure delight for me just to listen to her. Me, a true-blue Noo Yawker. “Good morning, is Mr. McCurdy there?” She knows damn well that it’s me, but, as I said, she is Proper English. And my response is always the same, “Good Morning Darling, and how is everything across the pond?” I can see and feel her blush…every single time. We both look forward to this call…I am certain. For those of you not in the pr field, pitching news stories to editors is not a fun game. Specially early Monday morning.
One of the first things I do on Mondays is take a look at where our stories are appearing across the globe. Currently, we are being read in 162 countries, in 3,890 cities! Just imagine. When I was in tv we had to wait for Neilson ratings. Now I just click a link on the computer.
Some of the more fun and unusual happenings:
* “Hello, Mr. McCurdy, this is Miss America!”
I had just finished showering and the phone rang. I answered it and that’s what I heard. I had been told that Miss America 2004 would call me to be interviewed, but I had no idea when. I was standing there ringing wet in my birthday suit. “Please hold on a minute Miss America” I said. Yup, you guessed it. I got dressed, and then did the interview.
* “I’m Worth About 20 Million Dollars”
Ever been in a meeting with twenty-somethings who are all millionaires – on paper? I have…many times. The really strange thing about these meetings, is that they were all very calm and somewhat surreal. We “older guys” had something (business experience) that the younger guys needed, and they had what we couldn’t quite yet understand. But we all knew it was Golden.
* “Please, I Beg You – Don’t Print That Story!”
There was an ambulance driver in a rural suburb in the mid-west who started a fund for animals that had been abandoned. The story got on the Internet and blossomed worldwide. I got his phone number and wanted to do a follow-up story. When I got him on the phone he begged me not to publish it. He told me that he had received over 300,000 emails and lots of donations and he was overwhelmed by it all. He had to close down his site. “This wasn’t suppose to happen – this was just a local story. My life has been miserable since this began.” Of course, I did not publish a thing further.
* ”Can You Get Me In Touch with the Scientist Who Authored This Please”
We got an email from a professor at American University in Czechoslovakia who had read a paper authored by a scientist at Howard Hughes Medical Institute that appeared on HND, and he was very excited about their findings and what he had been working on. I did get the two together via email. This is what editors live for!
* Here’s my favorite: A woman read an article from Yale University that described research being conducted on a hearing disorder. She said that the article clearly described her son, and that she had agonized for years to find a cure. I got Yale to give her a call. For an editor…this is a feeling much greater than winning the lottery 🙂
There are lots and lots more…but we’ll hold them for future blogs.
So, what would you think has been my biggest blunder so far, as an editor? That would be publishing an “Embargoed” news release. What a pain-in-the-ass! I never have any intention whatsoever in publishing embargoed news. Embargoed news is rarely earth shattering stuff anyway. To my defense, the ones that I have published usually had “embargoed” in very small black print, and I took them down as soon as I realized it, or am notified by the annoyed sender. I have pleaded with the offenders to put the notice of Embargoed in Bold Typeface, and, in Red. The majority of embargoed news releases come from monthly or quarterly medical journals who send out an embargoed release in order (so they say) for media people to research and add or enhance the embargoed story.
“The reasons given for such embargoes are twofold. First, they enable journalists to produce more comprehensive and accurate coverage, as the embargo provides time in which they can research the background to a story and thus publish “backgrounders” along with the story’s release. Second, they enable doctors and scientists to receive and to analyze medical studies before the general public does, enabling them to be better informed when called upon to comment or to react by journalists or by patients. However, some object to the medical news embargo system, claiming that it is driven by profit motives on the parts of the medical journals.
Now, let me tell you about the absolute dumbest Embargoed News Release that I have ever received. It happened several years ago, and I still get upset recalling it. A Major University that I will not mention, sent us a news-release on child/pet – safety advice that should you walk away from your parked car on a very hot/cool day. This release was in conjunction with a Non-profit Medical Association Journal. The release was Embagoed until Tuesday, the day the journal published, and the day after the long Fourth-of-July weekend! Let that sink in for a moment or two.
A reader once asked me to explain embargoes. After I did the best job I could, she said, “It seems like a sin that anyone should hold back news that can help mankind. Who do they think they are, People Magazine holding back pictures of some famous celebrity’s baby?”
As almost everyone is aware, newspapers and magazines are having serious financial problems and are downsizing staff, and expenses. Consider this: Internet publishers (that’s me) do not buy pulp, nor ink, nor do we have delivery trucks. To deliver our news nationally and internationally, we simply click on a link. Advertisers are interested in just one thing: How many eyeballs are reading our ads.
Since launching HealthNewsDigest.com in 1999, my credentials include writing/editing/publishing over 20,000 health-related articles/news stories on the health industry, as well producing/directing approximately 300 public service commercials for television over the last 25 years. I am a member of the New York Press Club, The Association of Health Care Journalists, and the Online News Association.
The highest moment came when I was asked to orgainze a press conference one day after 9/11 for the New York Press Club. The news coverage was so vast, that we canceled it a week later.
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