To all of my acquaintances in Southern California, a message of appreciation at this time:
A journalist on the same beat for a long time gets to know a great many people in the industry he covers.
So many of them, particularly those far away -- which in this case, means southern California -- are familiar to me mostly through email exchanges and, in the now-distant past, telephone calls.
In my long career, I have crossed paths with many executives, show-runners, actors, actresses, talk-show hosts, game-show hosts, comedians and others.
I wish them, their families and their properties all well at this terrible time. But I never would have gotten to any of them if not for the TV industry’s vast publicity apparatus, both in-house and out of it.
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How many publicity professionals have I known and worked with over the years? It is impossible to know, but it must be thousands. I have been doing this a very long time.
You publicists are the ones who help me every day. You answer questions, send me photos and provide timely access to the new-show screeners that are the lifeblood of the work I do.
We do not have personal relationships. We have long-distance, professional ones, for which I am very grateful. Without you, this job would not be possible to perform.
And so, a very belated thank you to all of you. Although I know none of the locations where you live and more to the point, what you and your communities may be going through now, I am thinking of all of you.
And for those who might be reading this who are not in the path of the fires in Southern California and are in a giving mood, a list of charitable organizations is shown in the photo above, courtesy of NBC News.
Adam, I second your post. Bushfires are terrifying and extraordinarily destructive.
But I would like to add that ... yes ... with determination, generous people and businesses, genuine friendship, and people whose names you will probably never know will do as much as they can to get you back on to your feet. My wife and I have come out stronger and more thankful after our five years and two weeks ago. If AU can do it so can the US.