Valleywag
Today a flack from public relations firm SS PR sent me yet another piece of spam following up an e-mail pitch I never asked for, proving that PR folks need some guidance in how to avoid being "that annoying flack" that journalists and business development workers gossip about at the bar. Because by pleasing journalists, you don't just help them — you help yourself.
1. Don't follow up e-mail pitches ("I was wondering if you had the chance to read this material," said the SS PR message. Oh, I had the chance. I also had the chance to watch Ron Popeil infomercials). The journalist you pitched probably gets ten to a hundred of pitches a day and deleted yours. This time you're marked as spam.
2. Life is not LinkedIn. Do not try to "make contact" with every nearby human being. There's a reason that "making contact" sounds like something you do with aliens.
3. There is such a thing as bad PR. Don't try to prove it.
4. Tech writers are cranky. (They're surrounded by geeks and suits who make twice their income right out of college but can't put a sentence together.) Ply them with drink.
5. Before you send an irrelevant press release, count to 10. If you still feel like sending it, count to 20.
Still worried you'll come off as a flack? Below, other PR-plagued writers share their horror stories.
Ex-writer Kourosh Karimkhany ("Identify me as 'burnt-out former wire service reporter'") has some anti-flack anger to work out with his therapist:
From my days at Bloomberg/Reuters/Wired, sure. Got plenty.
1. Don't send postal mail. 2. Don't send a fax. 3. If you call make sure you keep the pitch to 10 seconds. If you don't have me in 10 seconds, you're never gonna get me. 4. Spell and pronounce my name right.
5. Embargoes are satan spawn. Please realize that we as journalists know exactly why there are embargoes: to meet the deadlines and timelines of the marketing department. No self-respecting journalist — even sleazy ones like the ones at [gaming blog] Kotaku — would EVER want to go along with your marketing department's plans.
One writer says, "Don't call around deadline time [4-6 PM Eastern]. Actually, don't call, period. E-mail is just fine, unless we already know you."
Valleywag owner Nick Denton wrote about Silicon Valley for the Financial Times. He adds, "Don't ask for information that you can find on the website, e.g., 'Could you tell me the name of the editor?'" Also, "If you're taking an exec round for a demo, keep them wanting more. Nothing worse than being forced to sit through an hour-long demo that should have taken 10 minutes."
Publicist Paula Gould says she gets along with journalists because she doesn't "tackle them at conferences or stalk them. I hate those kinds of publicists. They expend a tremendous amount of energy on very little return."
At the very least, don't be creepy. "One time," says CNET writer Nicole Lee, "at this big trade show, a PR guy tried to set up an appointment with me. And i figured, last day of show, sure. I figured he had a booth or whatever.
"But no. he just had this hotel room. And it was a small company i hardly heard of. And he wanted me to show up in the hotel. And I'm like, 'Ummmmmm.... can we meet at the trade show?' And he's all 'no... it's too much trouble.'"
She didn't go.
Comments
Oh goodie, tell me more about how hard your job is. You poor lamb, you.
One day I've agreed to chat with a marketing vp guy for a company that
sells a product to help fight click fraud. Fine, right in line with my
readers' interests. "So what percentage of clicks, in your research,
appear to be fraudulent?"
He won't answer the question. His firm has researched this, markets a
product based on this, and he won't talk about the core problem.
A little while after the interview, the PR flack who set up our meeting
calls to ask how things went, as she wasn't able to be on the call.
Wrong Thing To Ask.
Instead of writing about her client, I wrote this instead:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060223H...
Nick, you could have done a better job with this since you're allowed to use
the seven words you can't say on television in your posts and I'm not.
Ah, yes. Spell and pronounce my name right. Because that's what it's all about. I'm super duper important. If you don't make me feel big, I won't write about you.
I like the publicist who points out the journalists love her because she doesn't "tackle them at conferences or stalk them."
You know, my clients totally adore me when I'm passive with the media, treating reporters like gilded brahmins instead of using my access to strongly advocate for the companies who pay my wages. And by "adore" I mean "fire."
Did you know that journalists can eliminate the apparent pain of PR professionals, today? All they have to do is a) rejigger their half-broken business models and create enough revenue to allow the hiring of exponentially more reporters and researchers and b) quit sitting on ass through their grueling 8-hour workdays and proactively source original news, rather than covering the same tired shit as everyone else.
Until that day comes, I guess they'll be stuck with a rumbling herd of PR people bent on bringing them the news that they'd seldom find on their own. Pardon me while I wipe away a tear for you.
Gentlemen,
If a PR does not spell your name correctly is becouse he/she does not know you or read something by you. How in the hell he or she is pretending to know what news can turn you on?
No, our job (I'm journalist but I worked as PR a long time ago) is not as hard. And no, your PR messages are not as news.
In the text I would add one more point: If you think that your press release could be considered news, try to imagine its tittle in a newspaper. See?, it is not. Go back and try to find news in your company.
I think that the job of a PR is not to try to make a joournalist publish his/her press release. But to FIND news in his/her company (or client's) and write a press release with it.
Understand, Fatlimey? Poor boy, you thought you are soooo smart... and your press releases sooooo interesting...
hah! Thanks for the perspective. This reminds me why titles are so obsolete. So many kinds of journalist and pr types.
Titles are just stereotypes for "business people".
Looks like opening the comments to one and all is a raging success.
Journo gets cranky because PR tries to tell them something SHOCKER.
Slow news day?
Yeah, don't ever call to follow up on an e-mail, because journalists aren't like you and me. They respond to every single e-mail that interests them, and nothing ever falls through the cracks.
Then how do you explain the many times my phone call has prompted a journalist to take another look at my e-mail, or ask me to re-send it? If it's an appropriate e-mail to an appropriate reporter, there's nothing wrong with a quick follow up.
And by the way, if you cover e-commerce, and you're on my list of e-commerce reporters, try to handle it when I e-mail you without having read your publication. There's a zillion pubs and only so many hours in the day. God forbid we should inconvenience you while delivering the content you need to sit and your computer and write your stories. Funny how reporters never mind you calling them when they're interested in the story. Then it's no problem.
May I chime in?
1- PR is extremely hard work ( I am not in Pr).
2- I would appreciate it if PRs - sensing the nice person in me, probably- did not shower me with their nephew-niece-daughter-godson 's application for an internship and, to top it all, give them my mobile number.
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