Comments on: I Promised Myself I Wasn’t Going to Do This, But…

By: SB

SB — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 23:28:00 +0000

Dave: Yes, you should definitely be allowed the occasional leniency. But I don’t blast out my blog posts to a hundred people’s inboxes, so I get a lot more leniency in posting my blog than in sending out pitches.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 23:05:00 +0000

All good points. True, too many PR professionals (of which I am one) don’t take the time to at least TRY to research and verify that the contacts on their media lists are topically relevant, but how hard is it to delete an email or simply say, “Sorry, I’m not the right person for that.”?

After all, not all of YOUR articles — or blogs — suit my immediate informational needs. Are we not allowed the same occasional leniency?

By: Wayne E. Pollard

Wayne E. Pollard — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 04:31:00 +0000

Scott, you touched on one of my former pet peeves. As a correspondent/freelance reporter for two Gannett-owned newspapers in NJ, I often got pitched stories that had nothing to do with what I covered (primarily business and healthcare). Now that I have a PR firm, I’ve finally realized the problem: many of today’s PR rookies lack journalism experience. As a result, they don’t know how to pitch a story, to whom to pitch it to, etc. More important, they don’t know the damage they do by pitching an inappropriate story to someone. Frankly, I found it insulting. You want me to cover your company yet you cannot even take the time to read my articles? PR people who did that to me were on my list – and I don’t mean my call back list. I don’t know if an internship at a newspaper is required for all PR undergrad/grad majors, but it should be.

Wayne E. Pollard, Author, “Minds Before Market Share: The Art of Public Relations”