#MediaMonday – Max Darrow
HMA Public Relations started it’s Media Monday feature nearly 10 years ago. It is one of our most popular posts each week. Some of our PRGN partners have adopted similar features for their agency blogs as well. And every now and again a post on one of their blogs is appropriate for ours as well.
And that’s just what happened when our friends at Landis Communications in San Francisco featured Max Darrow of KGUN in Tucson on Meet the Media. (This post was originally posted on January 29, 2018 https://landispr.com/pr/meet-media-max-darrow-kgun-abc-tucson/)
Max Darrow is a multimedia journalist at KGUN-TV, the ABC affiliate in Tucson, Ariz.
So Max, tell us about yourself!
Without revealing any secrets, can you tell us what types of stories, trends or issues are on your radar now?
The stories on my radar are constantly changing. I like to tell many kinds of stories, especially those driven by a strong character. If I had to pick one, I’d say local economy stories are pretty sought after right now. Tucson is a town with many small businesses with a lot of culture, history, and character.
Tell us about your dream assignment.
My dream assignment also always changes! You never know who you’re going to meet or what kind of story you’ll come across. A story I think of tomorrow could end up being my favorite assignment ever. You just don’t know all the time. That being said, something I would love to do at some point would be to travel across the country and tell a different story from every state.
Describe the craziest or most fun story you’ve ever written/ produced.
Numerous homes are left destroyed by floods after a devastating hurricaneI spent nearly a week in Naples & Ft. Myers, FL, during and after Hurricane Irma. It was such an eye-opening experience to be there for a natural disaster. From seeing how people prepared for the storm, to seeing how they came home to devastation, it was an incredibly important perspective to have. It was a difficult assignment, one I’ll never forget.
What is your top pet peeve with PR people?
My top PR pet peeve has to do with what kinds of releases we get, and how they’re written. We’ll often get releases that have interesting information, but don’t have the legs to be a relevant television news story. As for how they’re written, it’s frustrating when they’re missing key points of information (i.e., date, time, if we can interview someone).
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in the Bay Area and am the youngest of three children. When it was time for college, I was ready for a change of pace, so I moved out to Central New York. I’m a proud graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. I really love my job and am lucky to work in this field, but I do enjoy things outside of work too. I play the piano almost every day, and I exercise a lot. In Tucson, we have some amazing hikes…so I’ve started to enjoy hiking a lot.
Finish this sentence: People would be surprised to know that I…
People would be surprised to know that I often shoot, write, and edit most of my news stories. Many people think news is a very glamorous business, where the reporter doesn’t do very much. On the contrary…I’m typically a one-man band, multimedia journalist, who looks at a camera standing on a tripod!
