
Since 1955, Mortimer “Morty” Matz practiced the craft of public relations, and just recently he turned age 100. Best known for his shrewd creativity, Matz invented the July 4th Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, a global phenomenon now in its 48th year and annually broadcast worldwide on ESPN. He also envisioned the idea to turn the New York City Marathon, then limited to a course winding through Central Park, into a five-borough affair, an event that today generates estimated revenues of more than $400 million annually for the city.
I recently interviewed Morty, who employed me from 1991 to 1994, at length, and with whom I’ve remained friends ever since. He recounted highlights from his colorful career over the last 75 years. But more particularly, he offered his insights into how the news media and public relations business landscapes—as well as the symbiotic dynamics between the professions—have changed.
Morty's World
Morty has represented almost every conceivable kind of New York City client, spanning the spectrum from lawyers, real estate developers and healthcare institutions to hotels, radio stations, restaurants, municipal unions, nonprofits, district attorneys, billionaire Bill Koch and even a socialite accused of second-degree assault.
He also served as a mouthpiece for elected officials. In his heyday, Matz represented members of the U.S. Congress, the New York State Senate and the New York City Council. He advised Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign as a Democratic delegate for New York State in 1976. Mario Cuomo, then New York’s lieutenant governor, asked him to be his campaign press secretary for his first run for governor (Matz declined in order to keep running his PR firm, Mortimer Matz Associates).
Early on, Matz tapped into a vast network across New York City to transform himself into an insider’s insider and work his connections.
“I knew all kinds of people because it was the nature of my business to know all kinds of people,” he says.
Morty's Lessons on Media Relations
That far-flung network encompassed, above all, members of the news media. The legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin, a friend who immortalized him in print and dubbed him “Broadway Morty,” called him at 6 every morning sniffing for scoops. Fellow columnists Pete Hamill and Jack Newfield likewise contacted him regularly in search of tips that might turn into leads. Matz also maintained a 50-year friendship with Nick Pileggi, a former Associated Press crime reporter who authored “Wiseguy,” which later turned into the classic Martin Scorsese Mafia movie “Goodfellas.”
“I had close personal relationships with a lot of media,” Matz says. “My forte was that I came from journalism. I spent 10 years on the city desk of The New York Daily News. That was my education, my PhD in public relations. I knew the media. I socialized with the media. I lived among the media. We went out to bars at night. I had the advantage of speaking the same language. And I could be persuasive. I could keep certain stories out of the paper. I could also tell stories that would benefit my clients.”
Matz’s approach to clients was strictly grassroots.
“I never ran my business from behind my desk,” he says. “We worked together directly. I was out there in the streets doing campaign stops with Congressional candidates. I was in City Hall and the governor’s mansion. I got the feel for how my clients lived. My objective was always to do publicity on a personal basis.”
Morty Witnesses Changes in Media
The media landscape is dramatically different since Matz landed his first job out of Amherst University on the GI Bill as a $23-a-week copy boy at The New York Daily News in 1949. He quickly rose to photo assignment editor.
“TV has become paramount,” he says. “It’s surpassed print in reach. Images have taken on more importance than words. If you’re a client now, you have to be on TV.”
Journalism itself is drastically different now, too.
“Legacy media still matters, but less so than before,” Matz says. “Social media has grown much more important. You have more options available for telling your story—blogs, podcasts, Instagram, YouTube. But social media is for quickies. It’s more easily manipulated and tainted. It’s rarely good reporting. In fact, it’s often infected with propaganda.”
Matz also sees the media—as a whole—as more partisan than in the past.
“The idea of fair play—of listening to the other side—is gone,” Matz says. “Most people read only one newspaper and watch only one TV outlet. They pay attention to those who say what they want to hear. On the whole, it’s harder for a PR person to do a good job for a client, especially a politician. The media takes sides, stacking the deck, and it’s harder to find the truth. We should listen to our friends, but we should also listen to our enemies. We should want to hear the truth.”
Changes in the PR Profession
Matz understands how the PR profession figures in the whole equation, particularly how the business over the last half-century has expanded exponentially. PR specialists currently number an estimated 264,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment opportunities in the sector are projected to grow by six percent a year until 2032, “faster than the average for all occupations,” the bureau reports.
Meanwhile, jobs for journalists in national and local newsrooms dwindled dramatically from 2008 to 2020, plummeting some 26 percent to about 31,000, and are expected to keep dropping 3 percent a year until 2032.
But here’s perhaps the most telltale metric of all: The ratio of PR pros to journalists, only two to one back in 1980, rose to more than three to one in 2008 and now stands at more than six to one. In other words, just as jobs in the news media are disappearing, the PR business—which exists largely to maintain a symbiotic rapport with it—is booming. These opposing trajectories are likely to have multiple implications for the average citizen.
“Reporters will have to depend more on pitches from PR people,” Matz speculates. “PR will then have more influence over what news is reported and how. Anyone trying to sell a product, including politicians, will need PR more today than ever.”
Against all odds, Matz has yet to retire. He still practices PR today, representing clients such as real estate developers, restaurants and law firms from his high-rise apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Bob Brody is a public relations consultant and essayist living in Italy. He served as a senior vice president and media strategist at Rubenstein Associates, Ogilvy PR Worldwide and Weber Shandwick.