Mind that One, he's got a temper... Wack-a-Flack

How creative!?! Someone else at Wired has decided to take a swing at PR people. Because, you know, why not?

Bruce Sterling of the Wired blog network writes, "I'm Suffering An Evil Tidal Wave of Blogsurfing Public Relations Spam." He singled out one woman's pitch, a PR person who happened to have pitched this guy at the wrong time, and posted the pitch, with snarky comments throughout and her phone number at the bottom. The whole thing harkens to Chris Anderson's blacklisting of PR people email addresses.

Okay, so you want to play whack-a-flack?
Be professional. Get used to the game or get out. There are PR people and there are journalists. PR people have clients to tell you about, information you might find useful. If you don't? Delete the email or reply and tell the person making the pitch why you don't have time for their unrelated nonsense. But grow up--for all the time you spent blocking PR people's emails or coming up with creative witticisms, you could have written something of substance.

Don't tread on me!
That said, good PR is about two-way communication and respect. I won't be sending blanket emails by way of mail merge--and doing so does not signify a high level of professional or personal respect. A good pitch will be timely and relative to the reporters areas of interest.

But that's not the point... We need mutual respect
You don't get to play whack-a-flack unless I can play whack-a-hack every time a journalist repeatedly blows off a client interview, never responds to relevant emails or calls or writes inaccurate hogwash, about a client or otherwise. And I'm not prepared to do that.

We're supposed to work together folks. And the notion that we can publicly humiliate those that we don't like, that we could teach the other group a lesson, demonstrates a serious lack of respect between both groups. If you want PR people to pitch you relevant material--hit the reply button and tell them why their email is going in the trash, maybe they'll learn. To the same end, hitting reply demonstrates that the journalists respect the PR people's place in the process. We have to be able to work together or nothing gets done!

Truth or Perception--What's More Important?

This one question seems to get me into a lot of trouble, or at least cause me sufficient grief.

So what is really more important? Is it truth and intent or how it's all perceived?

Obviously, working in PR, the significance of perception is not lost on me. (I mention PR because it makes sense, but it was actually a personal situation, not work, that brought out this brain dump.)... I find it irritating that perception would trump truth or intent. Why wouldn't true perception be more valuable? Can a subjective thing be true?

In PR and in any professional career, we strive to put our clients' or our own best foot forward. But that best foot should always be factually accurate (read: not misleading).

I guess it's striking to me (and striking me) that people, myself included, consistently look for the negative, the scandal, the "ah-ha, I caught you." I find that real life situations are rarely that simple, nor that treacherous.

I suppose if people can't perceived intent, you have to tell them.

Podcamp: Blogger Relations and PR 101

One of my colleagues at Topaz, Doug Haslam, led a discussion with Bryper (Bryan Person) on blogger relations and some other stuff (that the session's really long title was supposed to convey)... Really the session was PR in the new media landscape and it was led by two people who are down in the trenches on a regular basis.

The session began with examples of failures.
Bryper works for Monster and shared a story about blogger relations going amiss in Ireland. I hadn't heard this whole issue before, but I guess a Monster employee in Ireland send out a mass spam email. A well-read blogger received the email, got a nasty response from the person who sent it and posted about it. Then some Monster employee thought it wise to comment on the blog post from work--and the IP address was traced and exposed... The post and the comments attracted a lot of attention--the post got over 500 diggs.

@dougH shared a story of a past Topaz client. The client got some unfavorable coverage and an employee took matters into his own hands... Astroturf happens. But the company didn't think think it was important to apologize for the employee and state their blogger policy (apparently the employees weren't supposed to commenting on behalf of the company). It took them entirely too long to realize that the blogger was, in fact, worth apologizing.

What's the point?
Find online conversations and join them! Using Google, RSS, Newsgator, Feed demons, Google reader, you can keep track of all of them.

New PR= Old PR
Form pitches don't work because PR is about relationships.

PR people can stimulate conversations. PR people can be involved in conversations on behalf of a client. But you have to be honest about who you are.

The take away (yet again): Transparency. Why is this one so hard?

Finding People in the Blogosphere: Blast from the Past

I'm absolutely amazed. Five or six years ago, when I was looking at colleges, I visited the University of Washington's daily paper. At the time, I was editor-in-chief of my high school paper (Cat Tracks) and I thought it was super important to establish a relationship with the staff at the paper before choosing a school--Really, it was a practice I should have been more diligent about keeping up, because I hardly set foot in the newsroom at BU in my four years there.

In any case, one of the people I met at the U-Dub newsroom googled my name and came up with my blog. And he left me a comment on the most current post he found--a post on new year's resolutions (one of which was to post more, which I don't seem to be doing that well at).

In such close proximity to the new year, it's really nice to be reminded of what I thought was really important six years ago. I loved writing, which is why I was applying to journalism programs. At the time, I remember feeling like journalists could expose important truths of history in the making by being the first eyes on the seen. I believed, as I still do to some extent, that the fourth estate was and is charged with the upkeep of the first amendment more so than the government that founded that right. That responsibility necessitates unbiased reporting.



It's funny how a blog can connect people who haven't spoken, or even thought about one another, in six years. I would expect such interactions to take place on Facebook or MySpace, but my blog has become an unexpected vehicle for reigniting past connections--and a way to remind me of the changes I've made in the past few years. What an unexpected way to start my day.