This blog is a response to the whirl wins around the bloggosphere about Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson’s blacklisting approach.
Read these for some reference:
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/sorry-pr-people.html
http://www.stevensilvers.com/2007/11/publicists-get-.html
Now THIS is a topic.
Chris Anderson decided he had had enough. Publicly listing the e-mail addresses of over 300 publicists on his blog and continuing to insult them my telling them that they are “lazy flacks” wasn’t even the half of it. To add insult to injury, he continued to share that with all of us that these 300 publicists have been permanently blocked from his e-mail.
I can’t completely blame him for being fed up with the hundreds of e-mails he has in his inbox every morning. But it is not like he goes through each one, carefully reading for any possible story. Honestly, like any other screener, he probably hits the delete button if he doesn’t find the headliner interesting. I’m not saying that it is okay for publicists to simply put editors and reporters on their media lists without doing the research, though.
In the article by Steven Silvers, he says that “technology has simply made them [publicists] more efficient in creating clutter.” Firstly, EXCUSE ME, but what we produce, what we work our butts off for, what gives content and stories to YOUR magazines is NOT clutter. Secondly, technology is what helps publicists to keep small media lists, dedicated to specific interests, the interests of writers and editors. I feel as if editors over look the fact that publicists do this sort of work to make their lives easier, and get our client's cause public.
Publicists are not lazy. It takes hours and hours to create one small media list, dedicated to one event or one small little portion of what a company covers. Think of all the little sub genres and tiny elements there are in Technology PR. There is a lot of sweat and tears put into those media lists, so I think all publicists (and the interns making these lists) would appreciate a little recognition and a little credit for working around YOUR interests.
That is my opinion on the subject.
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2 comments:
I appreciate the loyalty to your chosen profession, but after 25 years in the business I can promise you that there are indeed lazy PR people out there. Lots of them.
And you spelled debacle wrong.
Cheers.
S2
S2,
Thanks for your comment, and the spelling correction.
While I am sure there are lazy PR people out there, I am not one of them. I know a couple of people that Mr. Anderson decided to publicly humiliate and call lazy and I know from experience, that these few are anything but lazy. I apologize if I made a generalization about PR people working hard, but I must argue when the wrong people are getting their reputation destroyed due to an editor's overstuffed inbox. Thanks again for reading and commenting!
Patty
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