Monthly Archive for May, 2008
Page 2 of 3
Every year the New York City Press Corps lampoon the shenanigans of New York’s political elite at the Inner Circle Dinner. You may remember the pictures of Rudy G in a dress. What I remember most are the lyrics of the closing number. The assembled journalists address the audience of New York’s greatest movers and shakers with a rousing chorus along the lines of “You need us, we need you.”
Yep. Journalists telling politicians (and their assembled flacks) that they need each other. Because without the politicians, the journalists would be out of their jobs.
So the latest dust up between A-list bloggers and PR flacks has taken the form of Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, against a rouge’s gallery of agencies she’s decided to blacklist for the sin of, among others, emailing her directly instead of using the editorial email address.
So for the crimes of a few ACs, she’s blacklisting whole agencies.
Gina, do you honestly believe that nothing good or on topic will ever come from Edelman? Or any of the other agencies you have blacklisted? And is the onslaught of email really so bad that hitting ‘delete’ is too difficult?
What Gina, and most other full-time bloggers, have to learn – assuming they want to be treated like journalists – is that they are always going to need sources for good stories. Those sources don’t grow on trees – some of them might even come from PR agencies.
In the meantime, good luck writing all of those blog posts every day.
Bonus link: More smarts on the subject from Geoff Livingstone and Jason Falls.
Permit me one more blog entry about Twitter. Ok?
It’s like entering a noisy, crowded stadium and saying, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’… The entire stadium quiets to silence and everyone sits down except for four people that raise their hand and say ‘I can help!’…It’s that powerful and can provide a whole new lifeline of resources to draw from.
Sales Spider, the leading small business social network, announced today that Canadian office solutions company Grand & Toy will leverage the Sales Spider platform to build its own social network for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Members will gain access to the many features that Sales Spider offers with additional information built specifically for SMBs.
Hopefully they won’t have the same problem Dunder Mifflin had with their site.
It wasn’t that long ago that we were mailing pitches to journalists. Yes, snail mail. Or, as I did during the summer of 1986 while working for a Congressional Campaign on Long Island, driving out to the editorial offices and hand delivering releases to the reporters’ desks. Fax machines were reserved for media advisories (News Conference this Morning!!!).
In the mid-1990s I worked on the press staff of the New York City Council and pitching was as simple as wandering upstairs to Room 5 – the press room – and seeing who was up against a deadline with no story.
Then along came email and nothing was ever the same. The less said about that the better.
As new tools come along, new avenues to journalists are open to us. Of course, just like email, these new avenues are prone to abuse. But for those PR folks who are paying attention, there are new opportunities for clients opening up all the time.
For example, if you’ve been reading Stowe Boyd, you’d know exactly how he likes to be approached.
Bonus point: this is exactly why it’s important for PR people to be up to date on the latest social media tools. If journalists are telling you how they’d prefer to be pitched, it’s your obligation to learn.
Follow Me: