• Home
  • About
    • Life’s a Pitch
    • Amanda Ameer
    • Contact
  • AJBlog Central
  • ArtsJournal

Life's A Pitch

For immediate release: the arts are marketable

Press release bold call of the day

January 20, 2009 by Amanda Ameer

From Wonkette:

CNN Sends Very Important Press Release At 11:37 AM On Inauguration Day

Hey so like half an hour before our very first black president EVER
was sworn in, which is to say, when there wasn’t a whole lot going on,
anywhere, CNN decided to notify various press outlets that they had
released a rush transcript of Wolf Blitzer explaining the techmologies
behind their new space alien spybot in the sky…

On today’s special coverage, The Inauguration of Barack Obama,
Wolf Blitzer explained the satellite CNN is using to capture the crowds
gathered on the National Mall. A full transcript follows.

The image will be part of the photosynth CNN is creating in partnership with Microsoft. Learn more at www.cnn.com/themoment.

Please credit all usage to CNN

Full Transcript

THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I also want to let our viewers know we’re
going to be doing something rather extraordinary in the next few
minutes. We’ve ordered an exterior shot of the Mall from way up in
space. A satellite image will take a picture of what’s happening here
in Washington, D.C. GeoEye 6 satellite, to be precise. We’re going to
get the view from space. We’re going to turn that picture around as
quickly as we can, and you’re going to see what this would look like if
you were flying overhead from space, from a satellite. It’s going to
be, Anderson, a pretty amazing shot. I don’t think –

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: How do you work up a satellite?

BLITZER: David Bohrman, our Washington bureau chief…

COOPER: If anyone knows how to call up a satellite, it’s David Bohrman.

BLITZER: … does that. He just makes a phone call. He says, get me
the picture from that satellite. And we’re going to show it to our
viewers in the United States and around the world. We try, as all of
our viewers by now know, to do some unusual, extraordinary
technological –

COOPER: Hopefully, there won’t be clouds.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CNN “Tries to do” Unusual, Extraordinary Technology!

Also, Barack Obama is the President of the United States

No one cares, CNN, no-one-cares. Actually, I was going to send an e mail to Ionarts in D.C. this morning about the new Hélène Grimaud Bach album I’m working on, but figured, better wait on that: no one cares about Bach today either!

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Lisa H. says

    January 20, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    I”m sure Ms. Grimaud’s Bach is lovely, but I think you were right not to “pitch” today. I don’t think people in DC could even get to work!
    That might be an interesting post, though – what days and times of day do you send out press releases, and what days and times are off-limits, in your experience?

  2. Charles (Ionarts) says

    January 20, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Actually, I would have been happy to hear about a new CD today (especially Grimaud’s Bach). It’s not like there is anything else important happening musically today — that bit of John Williams cloying Americana fluff certainly did not count. Lisa’s right — no one is going anywhere today, so I’ve been enjoying the day off and listening to CDs. Oh, and watching something happening downtown on television. Just another day in the federal city.

  3. Anne Midgette says

    January 21, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    I confess I did find it a little odd to get press releases about non-inauguration matters yesterday, only because my whole day – and certainly our whole office – was so focused on the inauguration.
    But the only time I was really put off by the timing of a press release is when a couple of press releases went out on 9-11-01.

Amanda Ameer

is a publicist who started First Chair Promotion in July 2007. She currently represents Hilary Hahn, Gabriel Kahane, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sondra Radvanovsky, Julia Wolfe, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lawrence Brownlee. She thanks Chris Owyoung at One Louder Photo for taking the above photo very quickly and painlessly. Read More…

Life’s A Pitch

Why don't we apply the successful marketing and publicity campaigns we see in our everyday lives to the performing arts? Great ideas are right there, ripe for the emulating. And who's responsible for the wide-reaching problems in ticket sales and … [Read More...]

Archives

@Amandaameer

Tweets by @amandaameer

Interviews

Talk to me about marketing Shakespeare

Oh gosh: let's see if I even remember how do to do this. Back in the day, when I didn't have clients playing everything Ravel wrote for the piano etc., I did interviews with Industry Professionals. … [Read More...]

Talk to me about Music Marathon

Remember when I was really awesome and posting interviews every week? Well, I'm less awesome now, but here's an interview with Billy Robin of Northwestern University. He started Music Marathon on … [Read More...]

Talk to me about BBC Music Magazine

As often as possible, on Fridays I will post interviews with colleagues from the field who are far more knowledgeable than I am on various marketing and publicity topics. In honor (-our) of all … [Read More...]

Talk to me about Metropolis Ensemble

In the immortal works of Todd Rundgren, "Iiii don't-want-to-work, I just wanna write-on-this-blog-all day." That's not entirely true: I love my job, but it does make things I also like to do--coming … [Read More...]

Life’s a Twitch, Part 3 (The Journalists)

Though many, many more music journalists are on Twitter, these are the people I noticed interacting with the publicists I interviewed the most. Oodles of thanks to  @nightafternight: Steve Smith, … [Read More...]

Talk to me about ‘Opera News’

As often as possible, on Fridays I will post interviews with colleagues from the field who are far more knowledgeable than I am on various marketing and publicity topics. This week, we have F. Paul … [Read More...]

Talk to me about not music blogging

At the ends of weeks, I post interviews with people who know a lot more about aspects of the proverbial business than I do. Two weeks ago, theater blogger Jaime Green told us she would blog … [Read More...]

Talk to me about theater blogging

Happy Friday! It's not raining and I actually have an interview to post!  This week we have Jaime Green, Literary Associate at MCC Theater in Manhattan and blogger of 5 years. Below she discusses … [Read More...]

Glenn Petry, 21C Media Group

Because 1. no one wants to read about The Life and Times of Amanda Ameer every day and 2. because there are many, many people out there who know more about publicity and marketing than I do, every … [Read More...]

Talk to me about Dilettante

Sometimes it's hard being Amanda. For example, when I think of lots of cool people to interview for (le) blog, and they say yes, and then I don't have time to write the questions? Yes, at times like … [Read More...]

A Virtual Panel

A Conversation

Jan 18-22, 2010: I hosted a virtual panel on when and how artists, managers, journalists, presenters and publicists single out musicians for being "special" in their promotion and career-building efforts. Participants included musician, pianist … [Read More...]

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in