An Open Letter to Grumpy Journalists

I will concede that given the low barrier to entry in my industry, there are a lot of PR people that quite frankly suck. The schools, nor the firms, are spending enough time teaching young PR-peeps-to-be the art of truly doing research before pitching, building relationships with the media, or even reading/watching the pieces/shows that they are pitching. We hate them too. And we don’t hire them. So for this post, let’s agree that I’m speaking about the true PR professionals that have done their homework and really do “get it.”

 

Pitching the wrong person is annoying (for you and for us as well.) But here’s a fact: in many instances, we have very little ways to know what beat you cover or what types of segments you produce.  

• We as practitioners invest thousands in software to just get us started. But the information is rarely updated.  For print, our databases do a decent job for big cities and regions. For TV, they are worthless as they never outline anything about producers interests.  
• The media company you work for doesn’t do a good job of letting us know what beat or segments you cover. (What happened to putting this information right there on the website?)  
• Let’s be honest: even in most mags and many newspapers these days, you don’t even get your name listed in the masthead anymore, much less the stories. Not to mention, you change beats so often, YOU barely know which department to report to.
• If you are in TV, forget it. There is NOT a database, help desk, portal, or social network that tells us if you want me to pitch you my whistleblower that just impacted a stock price by 20% or a baby product that makes a moms’ day easier.
• Those of us that are good have already done as much as we can to research your interests before we ever pitch you something specific. (Many of us have even emailed you to ask – and you never respond.) I personally scour Cision, websites, Google, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter and more about you to try and find out what you’ve written or produced. And many times you haven’t given me anything to go on.
• We don’t WANT to pitch the wrong person. It wastes our time as much as yours. And it nets really bad results for everyone. But just so you know, we really don’t have many resources to help us get to you. (You don’t even all hang out at the same bar everyday anymore.

We understand that you are busy. And we’ve all read about how media companies are grossly understaffed and you are overworked. Not to be insensitive; but we are ALL overworked and understaffed. Welcome to the new economy. Try being on this side of things where we are doing twice the work at half the retainer AND keeping jobs alive for others. (Including keeping yourself from being replaced with a no-name, no-experience mom blogger since the average consumer of media may not even notice at this point, sadly.)

 

I know you think you get too many emails. I challenge any of you to trade inboxes for the day with me. Seriously. I vet over 1,000 emails a day. And that’s just the ones that require attention. It is what it is. I work 24/7. I will also add to this sentiment that I hear from journalists: reading those emails is part of your job.

 

Which brings me to the next point: if you never respond to email or calls and let me know what you DO want to hear about, you definitely WON’T be the one that I give the award winning scoop to, ever. (And this has happened 4 times in my career: which isn’t bad.)

 

And you don’t get to be mad at me when your competitor gets the first or sole interview with one of my “more desirable” clients (celebs, politicians, major CEO’s, etc.) after you’ve ignored my emails to become more familiar with your desires and needs as a journalist. This relationship requires work on both sides. You never know what types of clients a PR person is working with.

 

 

It really doesn’t take much to fix this relationship. I’d love if we had time to play together and enjoy long lunches like we used to. At this point, we may have to settle for a nice tweet to say hello. But I think that if we can simply communicate a little more openly (read: instead of ignoring an email or writing back “remove me from your list”) why not just send a quick note saying what you WOULD like to hear. It will make both of our lives better.

 

Besides, you never know – you may actually need a job from us one day – and much like you, we also keep a blacklist.