Seth Godin wrote a blog post called "Won by a Walk."

The post is about a a baseball game where the Mets won the game by a walk.  What Seth pointed out was that in a close game, no team wins because of that one final play, in this case a walk.  The team wins because everyone scored runs, played good defense, practiced hard, rested well, ate healthily, etc.  The walk was just the last event in a long string of events that led up to a win.

This matters to me as a restaurant publicist because in my humble opinion, publicists take too damn much credit for The Big Media Hit.  They tell their clients, "I got that for you" and often hand over a pretty copy of The Big Media Hit with an outline of the equivalent monetary value of their effort.  What they want you to believe is that The Big Media Hit is their sole effort.

I am not saying that a hardworking publicist with good ideas doesn't deserve credit for being  part of the team.  But they are that: part of the team.  They are not responsible for The Big Media Hit; they just so happened to be on the part of the team that was at bat when that bad pitch led to the walk.

Restaurants need to realize that all the work done before the media calls is what leads to The Big Media Hit.  The original concept, the great design, the delicious menu, the trained service staff -- those things make a restaurant work. The chef who plans dishes and menus ahead of time, the manager who responds to requests for emailed menus, the owner who knows to spend money on good quality photos -- those are the things that set the stage for media coverage.  

The publicist is just the person standing at the plate when the game-winning ball gets thrown.

Don't let anyone take credit for your Big Media Hit.  Conversely, don't blame any one person if you don't get one, either.