Jean McCracken, a 50-year old widower and primary school teacher, had followed in the footsteps of celebrities who have made the PR pilgrimage to the poverty-stricken African country in a bid to start a media frenzy. However, the country, portrayed as a media hotspot, has failed to live up to the hype. As a result, Jean has spent weeks waiting for a press reporter and photograher swarm that has never appeared.
Speaking from an orphanage, where volunteer worker Jean was doing one of a clutch of daily tasks as volunteer, she said: "Malawi has been all over the media in the past month as one of the world's top destinations to go to get publicity, but so far I've had nothing. Evey day I see celebrities advertising it as easily the best place to raise their profile and gain public sympathy - people like Madonna, Brangelina, and Melinda Messenger. The attention that offers them untold fulfillment was meant to be within my reach. Well the PR around that country is nothing more than hype - I've been here a week and not done a single photocall. "
The Pop Culture Phrasebook caught up with leading publicist, Max Cliff, to offer Jean advice on how to turn this crushing negative into a positive. Max said: "How much are you paying?"
Meanwhile, non-celebrity Jean is stranded in a publicity vacuum. The non-celebrity is forced to busy herself with mundane, achingly meaningful tasks such as teaching orphans critical life skills and vital, basic educational skills. Rather than publicity, she has had to make do with little more than love, affection and appreciation and the empty feeling that comes from genuinely helping a suffering people.
Meanwhile, every day Jean remains tortured by the memory of the media frenzies in the country around celebrities like Madonna. The reptilian, ego-on-skeletal legs generated worldwide media coverage in a massive Malawian PR stunt. On her recent baby shopping trip, the singer attended a string of press-friendly photocalls in various, tribal villages. This included reading her failed children's book in English to Chichewa-speaking Aids orphans, and doing sexed-up dance routines from her latest world tour to children under the age of sexual consent, and her famous 'cruxifiction' routine, to staunchly Christian villagers.
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