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Topic: Should There Be a One-Strike Rule for PR People?
| Author | Message |
| GalleyCat | Posted – 10/31/2007 11:04:29 AM | show profile Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson sparked a debate by publishing the contents of his killfile, which is built on publicists who send him a single unsolicited release or put him on their distribution lists without permission. Is he playing too hardball? And if the secret to effective PR/marketing is, as everybody keeps telling us, "build relationships, not lists," how open are the editors really making themselves to the "right sort" of publicists? |
| biz | Posted – 10/31/2007 12:14:15 PM | show profile | email poster No one-strike rule for me! I know it's annoying to be deluged with press releases, but I've gotten good information and leads for editorial coverage (when I was book editor at a regional magazine) and VaBook Festival--not to mention great fun (as with the Hollywood Book Festival)--that I wouldn't have otherwise. By following up on those releases I've enhanced, or even established, relationships. For the junk releases there's always the "Trash" button, and for repeat offenders (e.g., one so-called publicist, whose releases were as execrable as her clients' self-published books) there's the Spam filter. |
| recovering_jersey_girl | Posted – 10/31/2007 12:41:33 PM | show profile Hmm, this is a tricky one. I don't appreciate being put on lists; however, I am certainly receptive to a nice note asking if I would be interested in XYZ material. I am especially impressed with the (admittedly few) emails I have received that say something like, "Hi, I saw your article about [whatever] in the Times and thought you might be interested in [client] because they do/offer [related good/service]." Even if I can't use what they're pitching at the time, those are the PR folks I'll keep on my radar for the future. |
| cori | Posted – 10/31/2007 1:39:30 PM | show profile Interesting Some PR people can be esp. annoying, but adding someone to a kill file so quickly is not productive. Just as editors move around, so do PR people and how do you know if someone may one day represent a person or business you want to profile? Some people are just too power crazy. When I often post on Profnet, I will specifically ask publicists not to contact me unless their client fits the Specific requirements of my post. Most honor that, but I will get many unsolicited emails that annoy me. I will just delete them. Those publicists who keep my email info and continue to badger me with unsolicited emails down the road, I block -- but only after I have been fair enough to say to them, "Please don't email me a press pitch unless you check with me first. I just receive too many emails." It is important to build a relationship with a writer/editor. Lists are horrific. But, I would give someone more than one opp to try to build a relationship with me. We're all busy and overwhelmed by pitches, but being polite never hurts anyone, does it? |
| reporterwriter | Posted – 10/31/2007 3:01:30 PM | show profile In a perverse way, I like Anderson's idea because it foils the PR/marketing trap. Then again, I'm the type who'd rather die a thousand deaths than ever resort to posting on ProfNet to find a p.r. person's client. |
| Cyrus | Posted – 10/31/2007 3:59:18 PM | show profile As someone who's been on both sides of the aisle (editorially, as high level as CNN Financial News), believe me I know the pain. As I made the shift to PR some 7 years ago, I still know the pain, but in another way, as those people do a lot to harm the reputation of the profession. Whether Chris took too harsh a stand in posting the list is a matter of opinion. I don't really see anything wrong with it per se and found it interesting that many of the names on the list were representatives of some of the most well-known tech PR firms that claim to know what they're doing better than anybody. Having said that, I think if he didn't want to receive unsolicited releases, he should have sat up a "white list" system allowing only those people who he approves to send him e-mail. To me, it's going a bit too far to slam people for sending an unsolicited e-mail; he's got the right to delete anything he receives, put them on a killfile, etc. I must continually point out that there are clueless folks on both sides of the aisle. Just as there are many flacks that doesn't know what they're doing, there's also many reporters who write incorrectly about subjects. It's not always their fault, since they're thrust into covering a topic by their editors without any claim to specific knowledge of that topic, but a lot of mistakes get made because of it. A good compromise to me would be if he'd publish a complete index of every correction Wired ever issued. Would he be willing? ------ Cyrus Afzali Astoria Communications www.astoriacomm.com |
| DQ102 | Posted – 11/1/2007 8:56:44 AM | show profile This Chris Anderson guy is ridiculous. Talk about being on an ego trip. If you don't want to receive these emails, just block them or ask the publicists to remove you from their lists. I think the publicity community should stop dealing with Wired for a few months. Then we'll see if Anderson's attitude changes. |
| onmyown | Posted – 11/1/2007 12:21:49 PM | show profile It's the job I think it is my job to receive PR releases, just as it is the job of PR companies to send out press releases to as many people as possible. That said, it IS annoying to get emails from PR people who have no clue what we cover. But it's a simple delete. That's why I don't get upset at being added to lists; in fact, it's to the credit of the PR reps who found me. But my first task every morning is simply to delete all the emails that don't pertain to me -- it's easy to tell just by the subject line. It's also true that Anderson, as an EIC, probably has a full staff who go through all those press releases/pitches, so he really doesn't have to. But why antagonize the PR industry? Sounds like an ego there. No need to play hardball. We all have jobs to do. |
