There's an unspoken agreement between journalists and the people they interview that certain phrases mean certain things. PR people have carefully honed such quotes for their clients since the days of Bernays.

Drew Kerr decodes some of the classics on his PR Rock-n-Roll blog today.

Kerr--a PR veteran--managed to snag one of the 32 spots in the PRWeek's linkbait Best Blog competition with just 15 posts to his credit since launch. Albeit they are well-reasoned and edgy op-eds about the industry and we highly recommend reading them. Guess who he's up against? A little blog called Micropersuasion.

Continued after the jump:

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In hopes of pushing membership to 15,000 and beyond for his free journalist-to-source matching site, Peter Shankman named to day "Help a Reporter Day" and asked all of his members to update their Facebook and LinkedIN statuses to the following:

"Get Sourced. Get Quoted. Get Famous: www.helpareporter.com - Putting Journalists and Sources together, one quote at a time."

After taking months to reach a thousand members and outgrow mass emailing capabilities of the original Facebook Group, Help-a-Reporter is flourishing with two to three round-ups of press opportunities per day, often with over 15 queries. So if you have a comment on Staycations or tips for hiring an assistant (a query today from the Oklahoman) today is your day to celebrate.

(New York City's temporary waterfalls are a thrill for vacationers and staycationers alike)

Though the word "staycation" has been around at least since the staid Consumer Reports called it a buzzword back in April, PR tie-ins to mainstream articles and broadcast segments seem to be taking hold in a big way--much the way the term "home invasion" seemed to be attached to every burglary story of 2007.

With gas topping $4 per gallon everywhere, and recession afoot pitchmeisters would be wise to attach the S-word to as many things as possible. We know selecting keywords carefully works. If nothing else, putting 'staycation' in a press release or dropping it during a phone call will give pause or chuckle and get your pitch noticed, or forwarded--"Yeah, I think Joe over in House & Home is doing a staycation piece."

A few searches support our theory. Nexis yields 331 articles and segments over the past month, including money saving tips on the Today Show, NPR, CNN, and CBS.

According to a source at PRNewswire's Profnet, the journalist-to-source matching service, there have been 5 queries seeking Staycation sources over the last month.

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If your pitch meets the following criteria, you are worthy to pitch it to interested journalists, according to new PR-to-journalist site Newsvetter:

* My submission is newsworthy
* My submission is hyperbole free
* My submission is jargon free
* My submission is simple and clear
* My submission is grammatically correct
* My facts are accurate
* My information on product names and people is correct

Newsvetter is sort of a mirror image to Peter Shankman's Profnet-killer Help A Reporter. Instead of hordes of PR people responding to queries for sources trafficked by Shankman, PR people submit their ideas to Andrew Fowler's Newsvetter in hopes of attention--other "presenters" can comment on the pitch ideas. Journalists fill out profiles too with their interests, preferred method of contact, and links to their current bylines. So far, only a handful of journalists have signed up, though it's a strong list.

The question is, if the questions above seem obvious, do you need to traffic your pitches through an intermediary? We'll give it a test drive and let you know. One great thing about both Newsvetter and Help A Reporter is they are both free.

(via Shel Holtz)

Being the last of the mediabistro.com blogs to write about the NY Times magazine cover story penned by former Gawker, and current Galleycat blogger Emily Gould, we're taking a different tack.

Are you in PR? You have something in common with the tat-clad blogstress. If you have ever emailed a blogger, put your name on a press release, or blogged under your own name you are in a sense, a public figure. It's an important change (and not all that new) in our industry and it's critical to understand it.

The new rules of engagement are there are no rules. A blogger or even a mainstream journalist can paste your name in a story whether you like it or not. This is a good thing as long as you know when and where to respond. The best thing to do now is to read the classic Fast Company story "The Brand Called You" and start gently steering your own brand toward the type of PR you want to do.

To illustrate the spectrum of personal exposure online, Gould relates a story illustrated by cutlery on a table, where people without Google traces are the fork on one end, and the ubiquitous Julia Allison are the spoon at the other extreme. It's getting harder for PR people to be the fork. The full excerpt of the example is pasted after the jump:

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Cision, the company most PR pros are familiar with for their media database service MediaSource, formerly known as Bacon's, has released new on-demand editions of their flagship product, titled CisionPoint Enterprise, CisionPoint Professional, and CisionPoint Small Business.

Cision spokesperson Stephen Debruyn tells PRNewser, "With this initiative, we are really taking a customer-focused approach, with the client being able to choose from among a broad range of features available within the platform, selecting the Edition most suitable to his or her need."

Pricing starts at $4,500 for the Small Business Edition, and the Enterprise Edition is priced at around $50,000.

Audio profiles and photos are available to customers across all editions, and there are currently about 2,600 of these profiles, with more to come.

According to Debruyn, features that standout include, "multiple workspaces; the ability to personalize the home page of the application; and its powerful list building tool."

Screen shots of the new editions, after the jump.

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(Michael Bolton, bad at mundane details)

We love blogging about refined topics like setting up RSS feeds. But, have you ever been in a bad situation like Michael Bolton in the movie Office Space because of some "mundane detail"? In case you forget, Bolton's computer virus code mishandled a decimal point and nearly sent him to Federal "pound me in the a&% prison".

It happens all the time in PR. Contracts are signed, strategy created, messages developed, then no one bothers to check to see if the client's name is spelled correctly in the PowerPoint, or a release gets uploaded with errors.

If it's your ass on the line, PRNewser suggests this simple step-by-step method for checking facts:

1) Print out your document (you can do it on screen the next time)

2) Highlight every proper noun (names, places, things)

3) Run each one through Google, find a reliable site to confirm your fact

4) Correct accordingly

This is common sense, we know. Common sense in PR sometimes isn't all that common.

Ready for more advanced writing and editing education? Check out mediabistro's classes and online resources.

(Brando using The Method in Streetcar, via NYTimes.com)

Having long since received encouragement from Boss Lady Laurel Touby to write more opinionated pieces about public relations, today seems like as good a day a any to post one.

Recently the head of the interactive agency I freelance for described me to the client as "embedded" in the campaign. Despite the use of the Department of Defense PR's terminology, I couldn't agree more. Whether internal comm, or agency rep, you have to really dig in and understand the product, people, or service of whatever you're pitching and believe in its value.

Synch up knowledge, passion for the topic, great storytelling, and good media research before you pitch and you'll be channeling Method Actor Marlon Brando with your own brand of Method PR.

It's really tough in some of the dryer sectors, no question. Is it beyond dry or does the work even turn your stomach? You might want to heed Ken Sunshine's advice: "don't be so corporate." That's a tall order but no one wants to be a spreadsheet jockey, right?

Method PR differs from faking it. Perhaps I'm creating a misnomer here with the analogy to acting--so be it, it's Friday. Cultivating your own interest in a given subject and mashing it up to what you're pitching is a powerful tool.

Do you practice Method PR? Do you unfortunately pitch something that makes you sick? Drop us a note. Confidentiality guaranteed.