Why Media Coverage Starts With Problems, Not Credentials

By Nathan Brooks

People ask ChatGPT more than 300 million health and wellness questions every week, according to OpenAI. Brooks uses that figure to make a media-relations point: audiences begin with a problem, not a job title. Experts who build their public profile around those problems give editors a clearer reason to call.

Brooks, a longtime publicist and host of the Grow Your Wellth podcast, says reporters, podcast hosts, and editors regularly seek credible voices. He also notes that many experts receive frequent opportunities, making a narrow pitch harder to distinguish. The typical pitch still opens with training, certifications, and years in practice.

Pitches to his podcast rarely explain what the episode will cover or what problem a listener will solve. Brooks says hosts may struggle to place a guest whose pitch centers on a résumé, or simply not respond. His verdict is blunt: even an impressive résumé alone does not make good programming.

The problem-first pitch

Brooks hears one request often: “I’m a doctor and want PR. But I want PR only about doing surgery, because I am a surgeon.” His answer is that media relations works differently from a narrow description of daily work.

Editors do not cover what someone does merely because it interests them, according to Brooks. They cover what their readers struggle with, want, or need explained. Brooks warns that using PR only to talk about oneself forfeits a large visibility opportunity.

Readers increasingly arrive through search, according to Brooks, and type what they feel or worry about. Useful coverage meets them there. He applies the same logic to AI: OpenAI’s weekly health and wellness question count exceeds 300 million, and experts centered on a specific problem are likelier to surface.

Authority across media channels

Brooks counts nearly a dozen types of media coverage. They include dedicated features, expert commentary, trend-driven stories and podcasts, among others. Almost every expert wants a dedicated feature, but Brooks says those opportunities are scarce.

Commentary, trends and podcasts are not consolation prizes, according to Brooks. They build the authority that makes a feature possible. A media mix also creates repeated visibility around the same problem.

A case from FACTEUR PR shows how Brooks applies the approach. L&P Aesthetics in Palo Alto is led by two dual board-certified facial plastic surgeons. The doctors are eager to discuss facial plastic surgery, the technical work they do each day, but Brooks says their larger value is helping patients renew their sense of identity.

That need begins before an operation. Patients may look in a mirror and not recognize the person looking back, then focus on skin, eyes, a smile or hair. Brooks says their goal goes beyond a sharper jawline: they want to feel like themselves again, perhaps even better.

A five-tier authority map

Brooks maps an expert’s authority across five tiers, moving from the broadest conversation to the most personal. Most health, wellness and aesthetics stories sit in the first three tiers because they match what readers search for and want.

The first tier is problem awareness: why skin, hair and faces age, and what science supports. The next stage moves toward solution awareness. The final landing is the company as the go-to solution.

Brooks says this progression keeps the conversation honest: the company stays tied to a reader’s problem rather than turning every pitch into a product demonstration. It also gives editors a logical route from broad interest to a specific expert.

The approach earned L&P Aesthetics expert commentary in Vogue and ELLE, plus dedicated features in People, The Daily Beast and USA Today, with more still to come. Brooks says authority is not built in one medium. It accumulates across formats.

What does this change for an expert’s media strategy?

Brooks says experts do not need a new brand to begin. He proposes completing this sentence: “I help [this type of person] who are struggling with [this type of problem] so they can [achieve, feel, or do something they couldn’t before].” If the blanks contain a title or service, revise the statement around a feeling or problem.

Brooks then turns that statement into three editorial checks:

• Map the conversation already happening around the problem.
• Distill the expert’s perspective that most people covering it lack.
• Identify five topics an editor could cover this month where the expert could genuinely help the reader.

Brooks says experts improve their odds of commentary, podcast invitations and dedicated features by joining the audience’s existing conversation and offering a distinct way to solve it. Credentials still matter because they prove the point of view, but they should not serve as the headline.

Brooks’s near-term test is concrete: define one audience problem, map five relevant editorial ideas around it, and choose the medium that fits. That shifts the pitch from a résumé recital to a useful answer the audience is already seeking.