How I Did It: Michael Sitrick, Chairman and CEO, Sitrick and Co.

You're getting buried in the press? You can't get your side of the story out? For business leaders and celebrities alike, Michael Sitrick is the PR man who makes things right.

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As told to Mark Lacter

When bad things happen to a company--a bankruptcy filing, a CEO's messy divorce, a proxy fight--Michael Sitrick is the public relations guy who gets the call. His clients, who have included billionaire investor Ron Burkle, Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC) ex-chairman Gary Winnick, and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) ex-chairwoman Patricia Dunn, hire him to present their best sides to the press and public, by means that range from encouraging a reporter to see the client's point of view to placing a sympathetic op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal. Sitrick, who runs his operation out of a sleek high-rise in L.A.'s Century City, is also the make-this-go-away guy for entertainment industry bigs--everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Halle Berry. Whomever's case he is presenting, Sitrick is not afraid to make waves with reporters and editors, day or night--at $695 an hour, that's what his clients expect. He is the author of Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage.

I was born in Davenport, Iowa. My family moved to Chicago when I was three months old. In my senior year of high school, my father took over a group of radio and TV stations as group general manager and we moved to Birmingham, Alabama. My first year of college was at the University of Alabama and then I transferred to the University of Maryland and got a degree in business administration and journalism. I did some stringing for a couple of newspapers.

I was offered a full-time job at the Baltimore News-American, and I was also talking to the Chicago Tribune. They were paying $125 a week back then. And then I was offered a job working for the University of Maryland for $160 a week doing PR. I said to my wife, I'd rather be a reporter, but I'd rather eat. So I took the Maryland job. I went with my boss to visit local newspapers throughout the state and it gave me an amazing insight into the minds of news people. I remember hearing about what was important and not important and it really helped to shape my understanding of the thinking of journalists.

After the Maryland job, I went to Western Electric, where I was coordinator of press services. Then I went to the mayor's office in Chicago. I came to California as senior vice president at Wickes [a multibillion-dollar company whose businesses included home improvement, lumber, and furniture stores] in 1981. Wickes went through bankruptcy and then other crises, and then there was a normalized period when I was bored out of my head. We decided to sell the company in an LBO. The new owners asked me if I wanted to stay. I was trying to decide what to do when one of the subsidiaries that had been spun off said to me, "Look, we need some help on PR." People kept calling me to handle this or that. And I kept hiring people. Before I knew it, we had finished our first year in business.

I'm now running what for me is a pretty big firm--55 people in two offices. But I still draft press releases and I still interact with the media. I'm both blessed and cursed in that I love what I do. You have to be willing to work whatever hours are necessary--Saturday, Sunday, evenings. Last night I was about to go into a restaurant with my wife and a client called. So I sent my wife inside--she wasn't particularly happy. I sat and talked to the client for the next 20 minutes because that was when the client was available.

We still have an answering service. Our phones are all computerized, but this is a service business. Early in the history of the firm, we got a call from a law firm--it was a Sunday. And when I got the message and called the lawyer back, he had already hired somebody else to represent MGM. Giancarlo Parretti had bought the studio. The lawyer said, "You were my first choice but I couldn't reach you." The next day, I hired an answering service.

I never wanted to be a traditional PR agency. The model is more like a law firm. I always hire ex-journalists because I feel it's easier to teach journalists what PR is than it is to teach PR people what news is. Most PR people don't have a clue. Most PR people are terrified of the media. They think that if they say, "No comment," there's no risk. My all-time favorite is when they advise a client not to call the reporter back because that way the reporter won't write the story. That has to be the stupidest strategy I've ever heard. If we don't respond, they can't write anything because they have to get both sides, right? They don't have to get your side--they only have to try to get your side.

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