What gets you excited? Communications and public relations aren’t exactly new, but the way you do it has changed. With changes in buying behavior, remote work schedules, and misinformation from fake news on social media platforms, there is a growing trend for contributed articles focused on quality versus quantity.
Many today continue to pivot like Chrissy Newton. She is a brilliant, introspective, and strong woman, and also has a stunning presence. She opens doors to industries no one would ever think to explore. She manages to keep herself in tune with today’s rapidly changing trends. Why? She is ahead of her time.
Chrissy Newton is the founder of VOCAB Communications, Partner, Host, Producer and Director of Media & PR at The Debrief, Host & Producer at Alt.Pop.Repeat, Host of Rebelliously Curious with Chrissy Newton, and Co-Host at Somewhere in the Skies Podcast.
With a love for travel, science, fashion, counterculture, sci-fi and surrealistic art, Chrissy’s podcast Alt.Pop.Repeat captures how pop and counterculture worlds closely sync. She has been featured on CTV, Rogers, CHCH News, Marketing Magazine, Toronto Star, Dash Radio, and Sirius Satellite and The Debrief.
Public Relations: A Curious Affinity for What’s Different
With an eye on the cosmos, the world beyond our own has always been a fascination for Chrissy. From UFOs, astronomy, to ancient civilizations – her curiosity is as limitless as the universe.
Her curiosity keeps her open and alert to learn more about culture, technology and spirituality.
In her mid-twenties, she attended an information session about Centennial College’s post grad public relations program presented by a representative while studying York University.
She soon found she was a natural publicist. At the time, she didn’t even know it was a job until she delved into the program.
She studied public relations history. She discovered some people don’t think public relations (PR) is the biggest or most interesting topic.
But it was here that she became fascinated by the word.
Words carry weight.
After graduating from York University, Chrissy enrolled at Centennial College, where she undertook postgraduate studies in Corporate Communications and Public Relations.
She has read countless different ways people have used propaganda over the years.
While attending Centennial College, she started VOCAB Communications.
The idea actually started in her computer lab. One day, while staff and students were on vacation for March break, she returned to the computer lab at Centennial College. Together with her friend, John Papa, they created her logo for her consulting agency, VOCAB Communications.
This turning point led her into the world of business.
The influence of her other friends who started their own businesses inspired her to start her own business in her interest.
At twenty-five, Chrissy landed her first client.
Public relations clearly follow political and even consumer brands very closely. Her flair and fascination with its’ history galvanized her to become a major player within Canada, She has developed her skills and taken them to a new level within the United States. Today, she works all over the world – USA, UK and Canada.
Don’t Always Wait for People to Enforce Change on You
As the Host & Producer at Alt.Pop.Repeat, this podcast challenges perspectives on counterculture one of many being women and sexuality. For example, Sex with Dr. Jess (Sexologist) who educates the public similar to the work of Dr. Ruth, and Susan “Sue” Johanson, sex educator.
The question then is why are women not shy about discussing sex?
Chrissy’s point of view is sex is like an umbrella where practices like polygamy or polyamorous falls under.
She meets people who are more open in their conversations about sex and that’s because sex is moving into a mainstream free conversation.
She feels women are a little bit more open to talk about sex because of many counterculture movements such as female rights and liberation movements. Women aren’t objects. This then goes back to sex and the ability to have ownership of our bodies, who we are and to be able to talk about things obviously affecting our body.
She thinks female rights and liberation movements connect with each other when you look at countercultures.
In particular, she draws an interesting parallel between feature films and television movies specifically. Both no longer focus on sex, so why is sex gone?
She and her colleague Marie at Alt.Pop.Repeat, theorize (though not one hundred percent sure) it’s really hard to reflect the different types of sexuality within mainstream cinema now because historically it has been this strict male/female generally Caucasian relationships.
As you know, there are not a lot of cross-cultural relationships. This obviously is starting and will give you a little more freedom.
For example, romantic comedy movies about a gay couple. It’s starting to happen because there are so many different types of counterculture movements.
As a result, it’s taken some time for the mainstream media and film industry to catch up and adequately represent the culture around us.
She truly believes that’s why women are so intuitive. Because women can give life (not that men aren’t intuitive or anyone else), women have a connection to creating life, to people. This connection starts life. So why won’t women be very intuitive to life?
Public Relations Clearly Follow Political and Consumer Brands
Her journey today and where she will go as she expands her business builds on everything she does. From UAPs, this is her talk about UFOs, some technology, counterculture, mainstream culture to pop culture.
Her innate curiosity keeps her very excited about multiple and diverse subjects, she makes herself a generalist in many ways.
When she’s interested in something, she digs deeper and understands. With her, all revolves around putting what you have learned into practice, doing and making it happen. She wants to make it happen.
For her, communication and publicity are ways of creative self-expression.
And creating podcasts is the art of communication.
Curiosity Sets the Pace for Exciting Innovation
She prides herself on learning directly from scientists like Harvard’s astute physicist Avi Loeb.
She finds it incredible that you can ask questions and learn firsthand.
For this reason, her show called “Rebelliously Curious” is a good fit, as the show is about learning and insight, She is curious. She thinks we are all curious. For guests on the podcast, asking anything from small questions to philosophical or difficult questions is good for a balanced conversation. Make people feel included, not excluded. Her program is easy to access.
This is how she approaches everything she does in her life.
She wants to be approachable. She strives to make people feel like they have a place where they can practice their art, learn, question, and enjoy her creations with her.
One Skill That Make Women Awesome In STEM
Her dedication is to open doors and shine a light for women; to enlighten what they do and their work.
Diana Pasulka, for example, works in philosophy, psychology and also religious studies. She’s unbelievable. She’s great at her job. It’s nice to be able to talk with women like this, says Chrissy.
Women do a tremendous job and excel at NASA. So, shedding a light on women means getting them to a place where they can tell their story. UFO technology, science, and defense is a fun space.
By building strong connections, Chrissy and the women she interviews empower each other. You build a circle of referral trust with other progressive women.
She’s not a scientist, but she enjoys being surrounded by wonderfully smart women. She says it will be enhanced. The women in the science communities are gracious and very lovely. Chrissy is so grateful and lucky to discover a vast amount of knowledge through her affiliation with them.
She knows she’ll likely retire from podcasting because talking to women in science and the public fills her life.
Public Relations: The Power of Positive Change
Furthermore, she wants to uplift others. This is important to her. Chrissy’s PR work sheds light on the exceptional good work of others. And, it’s why she has a podcast because she wants others to know about their work.
She is one of the only female in the UAP world. She admits there aren’t many people who can help pave the way for other women to get involved in the topic. Chrissy states “to be honest, the conversation in the paranormal has really been predominantly white rich men”.
Is Paranormal Science?
NASA is currently studying UFOs. This all came out of the New York Times, where the US government came forward through the Pentagon and said they were investigating UFOs.
So, it’s in a very different place right now. Civilians can get involved and bring change to make a difference in the paranormal space.
However, there are not many women.
Chrissy is fortunate enough to be one of the women who are starting to really speak out in the paranormal community.
Chrissy broke her first news story with Micah Hanks and Ben Hansen from the Discovery Channel.
She helps spread these stories. She really is trying to pressure the governments of the United States and Canada to make changes, be more transparent and acknowledge what is actually going on.
As a result, she is able to work on a variety of PR projects alongside countless researchers who are now looking to the future.
Hesitancy to Say You’ve Seen a UFO
More importantly, Chrissy is grateful to be one of the truly accepted women in the UAP community.
People actually listen. They like and share her work.
She says there are now 32 cases in which pilots from various commercial airlines and services have seen or identified objects in flight.
Unfortunately, there’s still ridicule over Condon’s report. Since 1968, the report has been a decisive factor in dismissive interest by academics in UFO activities.
The report that came forward as a scientific study from the Robertson panel said that we don’t need to look at UFO’s anymore because they’re not scientific. UFOs are hearsay.
In fact, this is a government misinformation campaign designed to make people
feel ridiculous.
On the contrary, several scientists participate in this topic. Journalists such as CNN, NBC, Stanford University’s Gary Nolan, former intelligence Christopher Mellon, Luis Elizondo, Senator Rubio, and Kristen Gillibrand – a whole range of different political stances in very high respected professions are coming forward to say ‘we need to make this more of a conversation’.
The less ridicule it is easier for the average person to come forward. For example, you can say “Hey, Doug, I saw a UFO in your backyard, or I saw something that is a UFO.”
Also, a talk for pilots. In the past, pilots were so scared because if they said they saw something they would have their wings taken, even to this day.
Her awareness of this topic makes her acutely purposeful to inform people about the career of a commercial pilot. She asks people not to complain because it could make them ineligible to fly again. Even the smallest things can have a big impact on a pilot’s career.
For over a decade, people in the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (or phenomena (UAP) community have fought to change these rights so that more open conversations can take place. It makes people feel like they have the freedom to have the debate and not feel they’re being teased or made fun of. It’s slowly starting to change, and the ridicule is still there, but wait another decade and you’ll probably see a different dialogue.
How PR is Reshaping In The New Digital Era
Chrissy considers herself one of the few public relations (PR) people in this game (UAP). There aren’t many, but honestly, she’s one of the only females which she finds interesting.
There are a few and some are her friends but not many women.
The challenge is to intervene or even get involved in seventy-five years of information.
Imagine in 2017 New York Times broke the story about UFOs being real. The American government recognizes it. To this present day, all these historians know an awful lot.
One way to make talking about UAPs easier is to talk about different apps. The app is developed by several different companies creating databases of historical UFO events.
Apps Support Excitement About UFO Mystery
These apps make it easy to digest small pieces of information you can learn on your own and feel like you’re part of the conversation. This is the current case.
For Chrissy, her job for The DeBrief as a communicator (besides podcasting) is
watching breaking news from all sorts of sources. Technology, Defense, UFOs to mainstream media. Her goal is to make sure the facts are verified and valid.
Part of her job includes viralizing The DeBrief news and distributing it to major news
outlets around the world. They take their stories and write about them with backlinks to The DeBrief. The show picked up several articles from Forbes and NBC and was featured on Joe Rogan’s show.
When it comes to her UFO research, Chrissy is teaching journalists how to seize a great case with hard historical facts with breaking news and take risks. To feel confident to go to their producers and other people, and say ‘hey, this is why you need to do this story’. This straightforward approach helps sell and get your story approved by the entire editorial board.
Chrissy’s advantage is to continue to establish her status as a reliable and trustworthy person, providing not only correct information and historical facts, but also reaching the broader public with the core message of breaking news.
While The DeBrief’s stories may not reach everyone, she makes sure they are as authentic, true and fact checked as possible.
Today, she works with the chains of communication (not formally in place in the past) amidst different levels of the American government in Washington.
She’s working to teach how to increase transparency, honesty and trust.
She fully understands the correct information and collaborates with people who are passing the correct information on to those who feel connected to the facts about UFOs, confirming she is one such individual.
Public Relations: The 3 Things That Will Keep Your Passion Alive
Of course, to build your resiliency and trustworthiness, Chrissy shares the top three ways to stay motivated in PR or any career. She advises you to make sure you have a plan.
1. Education
Education is so important in many ways. You can find education in several places, and you can get it in different ways such as part time while you’re working.
She encourages young women to always aim for higher learning. It doesn’t have to be from a major institution. Really look at this and consistently keep learning throughout your entire career.
You learn something every day.
2. Consistency
Do something consistently and show people you show up. You are there and you love what you do. It opens so many more doors.
Because consistency shows you are passionate. Whether you make a little bit of money or a lot of money. It shows you have a vision. Dream and move forward.
She’s been doing things she wanted to do since she was a kid, in her 20s and 30s.
Your career will continue to evolve and change.
Let it do what it’s meant to do and do what you love.
When you’re passionate, you wake up every day with something exciting inside you then you should follow that dream. You really should go and do it.
Chrissy says, to people who ask her, do what excites you in life. You won’t have a lot of money at first, but with consistency, the money will follow over time.
3. Networking
Work, talk, meet people. Tell people what you want to do. One thing she’s learned
throughout her career is that she’s always told people what she wants out of life.
If people know what you want and they are the link or have credibility, they will
start opening doors. They will remember your interest and find the right person. Because it introduces you to the relevant person.
Don’t Let Yourself Get Bored
Chrissy still wants to do what she does best: PR. She hopes one day she’ll be able to focus on a specific topic. The UAP story is close to her heart. Until then, she will continue with PR, and her craft, podcasting.
She wants to create bigger shows. She talked to different kinds of networks outside of her own podcasts, such as YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming platforms, and had larger conversations with groups of people on larger Networks.
She wants to see pop culture change, not just the UAP topic. In her words, “You never know until you try”.
Chrissy is happy with her current life. She knows what she wants. Either a year, five or ten years from now, she’ll wake up and say “I’ll be in that other place that I wanted to be at that time.”
Duty to Ask Questions and To Know
Publicists diversify their reach and connect to new platforms and content media, including podcasts, newsletters, and more. The digital revolution has fundamentally changed how we communicate and deliver news.
Social consciousness will continue to grow in importance to consumers.
Chrissy Newton paves the way for other women by building partnerships with influencers in communications and public relations. She encourages a change of perspective. She is a leader who uses her words to empower and transform global conversation.
The words “I am strong” are important because diversity and inclusion matter, Speak your truth.
Words matter.
Her story: Be curious about who you are and let it take you where you need to go.