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The Snowball Effect: Media Begets Media

I met recently with a producer from MSNBC in New York and was talking with her about how she researches sources for breaking news stories. She told me that she reads the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and frequently contacts the sources that are used in their stories. She asks to interview these people on the air as part of her news stories on MSNBC.

This brought back memories of working with a quirky story at Sugarloaf/USA about Paul Schipper, the “ironman of skiing.” Paul started skiing every single day that Sugarloaf was open in 1981. We were pitching his story to the local papers, then the Portland papers. The Portland TV stations picked up the story, and it was seen by the Boston TV stations who followed up with stories. The Boston Globe and Boston Herald then did stories, and eventually a reporter from People Magazine read about Paul, and sent a reporter and photographer to Sugarloaf to cover Paul's amazing story.

Paul has now accumulated nearly 3,500 consecutive days that Sugarloaf has been open for skiing, despite suffering a bout of cancer and numerous other afflictions. His story continues to be picked up by media all over the country.

This illustrates a good point. Media begets media. The more coverage you get in the media, the more you will continue to get. There is a real snowball effect. So the moral of the story is: continue to work with the media, provide news stories and ideas, and keep your organization's name out there.

Your coverage will truly snowball.

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