The Strange Comedy Of A PR Person Pitching You Your Own Story

A few months ago, I wrote a story about Georges St. Pierre for Men's Health magazine. It just came out. The magazine sent me to Montreal to watch St. Pierre fight Josh Koscheck. A month after that, I met St. Pierre again at a photo shoot, where I was reminded that being a writer on pieces like these is a little like being an extra on a film set. In the shoot's fashionably gritty Brooklyn warehouse that had surely been rented for a fashionable price, I encountered several dozen people, all of whom seemed very important and extremely busy. I was out of my element in this crowd. So I skulked anonymously by the craft services table for a few hours, filching cheese and melon cuttings and never more aware of the journalist's unimportance in the PRODUCTION OF MAGAZINE JOURNALISM. Until yesterday, that is, when publicist Brenae Leary of Coburn Communication reached out to me with a story suggestion:

Hi, Luke-

Men's Health went behind the scenes of UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre's title fight with Josh Koscheck. In his April issue cover story, St. Pierre opens up to the magazine about acting as a trainer and a learner, always climbing to reach his goals. Would you be interested in running any of his quotes from the interview?

We've also got some great behind-the-scenes video of his cover shoot.

http://www.menshealth.com/cda/featured_video.do?conitem=060cf8cbcf9be210VgnVCM10000030281eac____&category=mh.guys&topic=interviews

Let me know if you'd like to run or need a copy of the magazine jpeg.

Best,

Brenae

On fighting vs. martial arts "There is a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose: He has a fight. I'm a martial artist. I don't train for a fight. I train for myself. I'm training all the time. My goal is perfection. But I will never reach perfection."

On his future goals: "The danger is not to set your goal too high and fail to reach it. It's to set your goal too low and reach it"

On his first jujitsu master, Royce Gracie: "I asked myself, ‘How can this happen? How can this small guy beat all these monsters?' Because of the knowledge that every war is won by the strongest weapon. Royce Gracie had the knowledge. The next day I started looking for a trainer"

On his opponent: "Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake"

On fighting: "It's like life. The more knowledge you get, the more questions you ask. The smarter you get, the more you realize that everything can be possible."

Why yes, Brenae. I'm familiar with this interview. I think I might have even been present for it, although I can't be sure. I am sure, however, that you've put an error in your PR blast. Royce Gracie was not GSP's first jujitsu master (although GSP has trained with Royce's cousin, Renzo Gracie). Royce was merely the inspiration for GSP to get into jujistsu (Brazilian jujitsu, to be specific).

My response:

Hi Brenae,

Sounds great. I'd be interested in interviewing the writer. Lemme know.

Luke

Brenae has not responded. Is this some fiendishly clever PR move, some way to get me to drive traffic to my own story? If so, it appears to have worked.