PR News' Courtney Barnes captured some of the back and fourth between Charlie Rose and Howard Rubenstein during one of today's sessions at Media Relations Summit 2008:

"We are your advocates here," [Rose] continued, referring to the media. "We have an interest and a goal-we have an agenda, and it may or not be yours-but at the same time, keep people like me informed so that I feel like you have my interest in mind."

Rubenstein followed that comment by saying that too many PR people blindly send pitches, and Rose then offered two very valuable tips to the communicators in the audience:

"Don't send us [journalists] things that we know are official lies. If I think you are trying to spin me and you think I'm trying to screw you, then we are at a loss."

Ok, so maybe "don't lie" is a given, and not necessarily a "valuable tip." But to Rose's point, if you're going to have a confrontational relationship with a journalist, with each party thinking the other is trying to pull a fast one, neither of you will get anything of value out of it.