Of course there is good and bad publicity. If you do enough stupid stunts you'll definitely make headlines, but this won't create the kind of results you're hoping to achieve. Many people are under the erroneous impression that a lot of education helps, but there are plenty of examples that don't support this. Anthony Robbins is one of the most sought after motivational speakers, yet he doesn't have a college education. Publicity is more about soft marketing, timing and formalities.
Most people make a mistake on one side of the spectrum.
They either perceive that what they are doing is interesting to everybody, and thus newsworthy, or they believe that what they are doing couldn't possibly be newsworthy to anyone. Both are wrong. Nothing that we do is interesting to everyone. We must target the right publications to attain the correct results. On the other hand, whatever it is that you're doing is interesting to someone.