I’ve "Impressed" Everywhere, Man -- 40 Years of Making Headlines

By Robert Hudson Westover

What does it mean to be seen, read or heard by over one billion people? Well, apparently not much--or much. 

I say this because as I completed a bibliography (of sorts) of my published works, broadcasts, and newspaper quotes, I soon realized that with the coin of the realm of what I do for a living in public relations, media hits and impressions, I have, well, somewhat conquered the world. I mean from just 1999 to 2000 my media impressions alone where over 100 million!

Like Johnny Cash, "I've been everywhere, man.”

Yet, unlike the country music legend, no one knows my name, man. Truth is if I were to get hit (the bad kind of hit) by a meteor doing yardwork the headlines would read: local man killed by meteor. Not, “man who did all this amazing, fun and exciting stuff”—you know him, right?

Robert in the New York Times,
Easter Sunday, 1999

Robert standing next to a
Smokey Bear sign in
Griffith Park, Los Angeles

So, all this begs the question: Why do so many of us in the public relations world (and its cousin profession, advertising) desire that brass ring of fame--of recognition?

And we do.

I guess it’s the desire to be relevant, immortal. Right? I mean, we’re all going to go from this amusement park called Planet Earth sooner or later—even if we can all live more than 100 years--someday our number comes up and we’re escorted out of the place--with most of us leaving as if we had never been here at all.

I did have that moment of feeling relevant once and it was, well, meteoric. It happened at work. A new intern had started for the summer. She had come in from Los Angeles and me also being a native Los Angelino I went over to introduce myself. As I welcomed her to the shop I said, “Hi, I’m Robert Westover and I work on…” at that moment she looked like she had seen a ghost. I had to asked her if everything was ok—I mean she was literally shaking. She said yes everything was ok and then explained to me that an article I had written about conservation vs preservation in managing our national forests and grasslands had inspired her to follow a career in wilderness land management!

So perhaps this is why we carve our names into those proverbial trees or want to have a building, park bench, or something named after us. It’s our hope, I think, that future generations might stumble on one of our achievements and connect the dots to get an outline of who and what we were and how we added to the Autobiography of Us.

Now I can see why I have done a lot of carving on trees. Maybe I might even have a billion more carved by the time I’m escorted out of Planet Earth having been “everywhere, man.”

My Bibliography and How I Came Up With Over One Billion Impressions

The list below is by far not exhaustive of all hits and impressions my news stories have generated over the past 40 years. In fact, none of my media awareness campaigns where my name isn’t mentioned appear below.

I’ve organized my major media awareness and personal achievement third-party validation* reach into nine categories:

·        The SS United States awareness campaign (1998 to 2005),

·        Stories related to my service in the United State Marine Corps (2004 to 2006),

·        My historic run for Congress in 2000 (as the first openly Gay man in Virginia’s history),

·        My time as a ballet dancer and actor (1982 to 1992),

·        My husband and my LGBTQ activist work (2012 to 2015),

·        My performance art character, Lord Westover, and other royalty related stories (2010 to present),

·        My articles/social media livestreams with the USDA Forest Service (2007 to present),

·       My work in bringing awareness to the importance of the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act (1999 to 2000),   

      Miscellaneous: Jackie Kennedy connection, book credits, career promotion articles, movie, TV and other videos.

A photo seen around the world of Robert and Tom
taken on the day the US Supreme Court ruled in
favor of Gay marriage equality. This was the lead
photo on the Huffington Post that day. 
(Courtesy photo, Huffington Post)

I need to point out that many of my hits and impression happened when the Internet age was just getting started (or before the Internet even existed!) so the reach was much more limited. For instance, before the ubiquitous use of Internet search engines the New York Times, like all major newspapers, could count its possible impression by its subscribership x 3 has it was estimated that up to 3 people would share a story via hardcopy in those olden days. In fact, this is exactly how those of us in the Public Relations world calculated the worth of a hit to our clients.

Robert's first news story

Now, with something like 20 million subscribers, and the ability to easily send a story to reach far more than 3 people per subscriber, the impressions generated by the New York Times is potentially well over 100 million. It is for this reason you’ll notice that my hits in the New York Times, that were not picked up by its syndicate, were in the several millions vs the syndicate pickups that exceeded 75 million impressions—but would now be in the hundreds of millions. It’s a little confusing for sure!

By far the largest media story I was ever part of happened in June of 2015 when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gay and Lesbians having the legal right to marry nationally. The side story of my marriage of 15 years (at the time--we're now at 22 years and counting!) to my husband, Tom Fulton, was picked up by nearly every major media outlet in the US and by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the oldest and largest media outlet in the world. With bureaus in over 100 countries the AFP’s potential impressions exceed 2 billion. I cut this figure to 500 million as many of the dozens of newspapers and broadcast news stations that picked up the story internationally were the English editions as was the case in both China and India.

And just for fun I added my book sales and my acting career “hits” as they certainly deserve some mention, though the impressions are difficult to calculate.

National/International Broadcasts:

CNN (SS United States Foundation, 1999) 15 million impressions

ABC World News Tonight (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 20 million impressions

BBC World News (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 350 million impressions

PBS New Hour (LGBT issues 2015) 10 million impressions

AFP (LGBT Issues 2015 – Was picked up and broadcast internationally in dozens of news stations and newspapers as well as being picked up by Getty Images.) 500 million impressions

PBS News Hour (Capitol Christmas Tree 2015) 10 million impressions

Op Eds and other published pieces:

Soundings Magazine (SS United States Foundation, 1999)

Westmoreland Times (SS United States Foundation, 2000)

Letters to the Editor:

Christian Science Monitor (Ballet 1990) 100 thousand impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation, 2004) 3 million impressions

USA Today (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 5 million impressions

Features/Articles/Mentions in Newspapers:

Morro Bay Sun (Ballet, 1981)

San Luis Obispo Tribune (Ballet, 1981)

Associated Press (Chicago Sun Times—SS United States Foundation, 1998) 2 million impressions

Washington Post (job promotion/Arnold Worldwide, 1999) 1 million impressions

Washington Post (Run for Congress, 2000) 1 million impressions

Wired Magazine (DMCA cover story, 2001) 3 million impressions

Maritime Magazine (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Honolulu Star Bulletin (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Seattle Times (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Readers Digest (USMC, 2005) 100 million impressions

Washington Post (Washington, DC ANC work, 2005) 1 million impressions

Washington Post (Grand Mother’s obituary —appeared first in the San Diego Times Union, 2007) 1.5 million impressions

USA Today (Real Estate Issues, 2009) 5 million impressions

Washington Post (Lord Westover/State of the Union Contest, 2010) 1 million impressions

Yahoo News (Royal Wedding/William and Kate, 2011) 3 million impressions

Christian Science Monitor (Lord Westover at John Stewart Rally, 2010) 100,000 impressions

South Tahoe News (Forest Service, Fire story, 2014)

TSI Magazine (Forest Service antique furniture story, 2021)

The Patriot (Forest Service fire story, 2021)

Roanoke Times (also appeared in Advent News and Opera News Forest Service fall colors, 2021)

Quotes in Articles of Major National and International Media Outlets:

New York Times (SS United States Foundation--Save the SSUS–1999 front page national section and entire syndicate including Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press and the Times Herald) 75 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation), Visit to New Port News in Metro section)—1999) 2 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation, 2003 NCL buys SSUS/Front page national section entire syndicate including the Times Herald) 10 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation--Commodore Anderson obit– 2004) 4 million impressions

Newsday (SS United States Foundation – 1999)

Newsday (SS United States Foundation, Book – 2002)

Philadelphia Inquirer (SS United States Foundation, 1999 – 2004) 500 thousand impressions

Orange County Register (SS United States Foundation, 2002-2006) 300 thousand impressions

Wall Street Journal (USMC 2004) 6 million impressions

Huffington Post (LGBTQ issues – lead picture 2015) 12 million impressions

CBS News (LGBTQ Issues 2015) 15 million impressions

Yahoo News (LGBTQ issues 2015) 3 million impressions

Muck Racker (Stories written about the USDA Forest Service—not exhaustive)

Books:

SS United States, Fastest Ship in the World (Turner) sold over 20,000 copies

Lessons in Nobility (self-published) sold over 1000 copies

Nobility Lessons for Dummies (self-published) sold over 10,000 copies

Academic Recommendations/Scholastic References:

Course Hero (Forest Service – Conservation vs Preservation)

Course Hero (LGBT+ Issues)

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review (Forest Service -- Conservation vs Preservation)

A Man and His Ship – The Story of America’s Greatest Naval Architect (SS United States Foundation reference)

Janet, Jackie and Lee (Jackie Kennedy bio where I am both quoted and referenced)

Jackie: Public, Private, Secret (Jackie Kennedy bio where I am both quoted and referenced)

Movies/TV/Livestreams/YouTube:

IMDb (entertainment listing) 

Uncle Joe Shannon (MGM/Actor -- 1978)

Love Thy Neighbor (ABC/Actor -- 1982)

MCI (national ad campaign/actor--1993)

Historic run for Congress (News 8, Washington, DC)

DNC National Convention in Los Angeles (News 3 LA -- DNC spokesman, 2000)

History of Veteran’s Day (History Channel/highlighted--2004)

Meet Robert Hudson Westover (Faces of the Forest Service, 2016)

Woodsy Owl’s 50^th Birthday (Forest Service livestream)

Pride Month (Forest Service livestream)

JFK's Summer White House (You tube video that features Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss, Jackie Kennedy's beloved stepbrother.) 

Smokey Bear’s 78^th Birthday (Ad Council livestream)

*Third Party Validation is a term used in public relations to emphasis the importance of a media outlet selecting to broadcast a story without being paid to do so by the firm or author. Unlike paying for advertising space, something anyone can do, third party validation means one has had to convince an editorial board that the story is worth being disseminated to the public.