Wired is doing a story about Mike Arrington’s TechCrunch20 Conference. Reporter calls two of Mike’s associates. Said associates get all pissy with the reporter and demand to be interviewed by email. Reporter tells them to stuff it. Story now in doubt.
Full story here.
There’s a lesson here PR peeps. When reporters “who else can I talk with” make sure the “whom else” are people you trust to be nice and cooperative.
The same should be considered for references for that matter. Cannot tell you how many calls I get from potential employers checking references and the people using me as a reference have not even told me prior. In one case, I had not worked with the person for several years and struggled to think of something relevant to say.
On media leads, this reminds me of a Profnet situation I heard about from a friend. They sent a lead to someone to consider and instead of responding to the PR person, they replied directly to the reporter as if the interview was a done deal. Doph!