Are all PR people blind? Or illiterate?

Dear Doctor Spin,

I have a problem with PR people that concerns me greatly. I'm quite worried about the fact that the incidence of blindness appears to have reached epidemic levels in the PR community. Or perhaps it is illiteracy - it is hard to tell. At least that appears to be the case with PRs who use the popular Response Source service.

As a journalist, I often send Response Source queries to PRs requesting information for whatever I am currently writing about. I always ask for contact by email, because there are a limited
number of hours in the day. And I like to be able to eat and sleep as well as answer the phone!

However, unless I also add a note in the query saying I'll be out of the office (so email is the only method to reach me), I still get inundated with calls. In fact, a colleague and I have been taking bets on the Response Source "races" (as we call them).  The current record is 45 seconds for the first call  to arrive after sending out a Response Source request.  I've now decided to add a handicap. First it was irrelevant clients.But I now wait for the first call offering a client in a sector I've specifically said I won't be covering.

Am I being unjust? Is the contact preference so hard to spot on this service, or is the dialling reflex too ingrained? Please help me!

There a number of conditions that PRs could be suffering from in this case. First is one known as selective word blindness. This is caused by the PR exec not taking the time to read the Response Source request properly and seeing a key word or phrase that they believe is relevant to their client and simply picking up the phone as a Pavlovian reaction. Experiments have been conducted using text recognition software hooked up to an electric chair that provides a large shock to the PR if they attempt to pick up the phone when the message tells them not to. This certainly seems to cure some, but in the more severe cases, it has no effect.

Another possibility is that they are suffering from "They don't really mean don't call me-itus". This is a condition where the PR has understood the message, but refuses to believe that you won't take a phone call from them. They find it inconceivable that a journalist wouldn't want to talk to a PR. Some journalists have found that verbal abuse can be quite effective in these circumstances (eg, Are you a f**ing idiot or what?). However, this is to be used at your descretion.

A related condition is where the PR completely understands that they have nothing relevant to your request - but use it as an excuse to call you anyway. This is generally motivated by the need to demonstrate that they have been "liaising" with journalists (see earlier entry). Perhaps call screening might be needed to deter repeat offenders.

However, as a sure fire way of getting some kind of recompense for your trouble, have you considered setting up a premium rate phone number for incoming PR calls?  In which case, even though you may be irritated by irrelevant PRs, at least you'll get paid for your trouble.  The financial impact on PR companies may over time help to weed out this annoying practice. Then again, some may simply decide this is a business cost that will be passed back to the client - with, naturally, a 17.5pc mark up.

Comments

[Jon]

There's always a minority that make the good guys look bad!! Most prs are good , honest and sensible!

[Dennis Howlett]

I'd love to meet the 'most' in Jon's comment. For me, Andrew absolutely nails it.

[Shane McGinley]

Reponse Source is useful but I wonder does it make some journalist lazy and they get too dependent on it. And then you only get PR driven stuff and not on the ground material? There isn't an Irish version which sometimes is good as you can find interesting things when you go out searching yourself. But yes I also never attach my phone number - did once and phone never stopped ringing and after about 10 calls got annoying.

[Truth Not Spin]

I am in no doubt that people - whether in PR or not - need to read first, then action. BUT...

I'm bored of reading these 'hilarious' articles about the 'hilarious ineptitude' of PRs. Certain journalists need to spend less time on either using Response Source or slagging off PRs and get back on the beat. Do some real research (rather than using RS to have it delivered on a plate) and give journalism (IT journalism especially) a better image...

And how can jouralists talk anyway?! Isn't it about time PRs started writing about "Journalist Blindness"? For example, you confirm in triplicate with regards a phone interview, only for the journalist to email questions instead! You arrange - and confirm in triplicate - an interview venue, only for the journalist to turn up at the wrong place?!

[Doctor Spin]

I'm more than happy to consider issues PRs have with journalists.

[Penny]

Surely if all journalists had the time to do their own research and be perfectly organised, PR wouldn't exist as we know it? Let's not bite the hand that feeds us!
Having been on both sides of the fence, the production times in journalism are ferocious and the pay pretty poor, except for a select few. I've been delayed by the start time on a press release being off by at least half an hour, so I was late for the next interview and was duly roasted: it doesn't make for a good day by the time I got to my fourth meeting and I still had deadlines to hit.
Life on the PR side of the fence is not perfect, but it is often less pressurised and usually better paid (although probably not as great as the media think: a lot more background work goes in than is charged for). And it's not all about snew stories: it's about engaging with the media on newsworthy issues. Far from being an obstacle to journalists, we're often busting a gut on their behalf to get a response, but senior management/ clients can and do put pressing business before media comment. It doesn't help that the media won't want to hear it from the spokesperson.
But if the media didn't push for the best interviewee they could get, they wouldn't be doing their job.
So let's get on with engaging with and helping the media so we reap the reward of an unsolicited call from a journalist or broadcaster the next time they need a response on the topic. Don't forget that all good journalists have their equivalent of 'the little black book' whether it's on or offline.

[Doctor Spin]

Wise words Penny. The PR's agenda and journalist's agenda are not the same. The PR serves a client (who in theory serves its customers). The journalist serves his/her readers. The best interests of both you could argue should be same - but very often they are not.

[Truth Not Spin]

Here, here. But you probably could tell what gets my goat from my original posting -- the fact that Penny's view is rarely, if ever, echoed by journalists who, instead, lovely nothing more but to bite the hand that feeds *them* and postulate on the inadequacies of PR in order to either fill some column inches. Or because they like a good old moan. But don't we all!...

[Truth Not Spin]

Good to see the views I expressed on this thread appear in print in two letters in this week's PR Business.

It's about b****y time the PR industry stood up to this unnecessary bashing. Especially as it's held back for so long, fearing that it would cause a backlash from offended journalists. But not now. The days of the two-faced, uncompromising journalist - most prevalent in IT it seems - are well and truly numbered...