PR-Bridge

The spate of bad press public relations received recently is disheartening, but accentuates the basic premise of journalist/practitioner relations — build the relationship on mutual trust and respect.

In the Anderson/Wired magazine case, he lashed out because of the number of unsolicited and irrelevant releases he received. Calling out the public relations professionals publicly (including those from many big “name” firms) may seem a bit over the top, but the it made an important point: do your homework before mass mailing yet another press release.

This lesson about building trusting relations with journalists is important for students and young professionals. Having spent more than a decade as a freelance journalist, I have seen the downside of spam e-mails. I routinely receive releases about food, travel, and other topics that I have never written about as a journalist. And, I am just a part-time freelancer…I cannot imagine the number of releases that would cascade in if I were a magazine or newspaper staffer.

Both public relations professionals and journalists realize that they need each other. Trusting relationships are fantastic and mutually beneficial. Great PR pros I have worked with while wearing my journalist hat helped illuminate stories by providing additional (key) information and access to executives. Furthermore, practitioners on both sides have seen the studies that reveal about 75 percent of the news each day comes from a PR source. We need each other, so why not build the relationship on trust?

Brian Pittman’s exclusive interview with Anderson for Bulldog Report’s Daily Dog is revealing in many aspects, particularly for students and young professionals. Anderson talks about his own use of PR at Conde Nast:

“Condé Nast employs hundreds of PR people. I have PR people on my own staff. We believe in PR. We spend a lot of money on it. Some of our best employees’ functions are driven by PR. In fact, we’re changing the game internally here by using what we’re calling PR 2.0 to train staff to do their own marketing and outreach for their work and stories.”

So, Anderson’s criticism did not indict PR in general…it slapped sloppy practitioners who do not do their homework. Or, in other words, don’t try to build a lasting relationship with journalists at target publications.

Anderson’s “tips” for pitching are just about textbook, as well as the challenges. I’m going to end with a long quote, because it indicates a major problem that the PR industry must address:

“Read it. Freakin’ read what you’re pitching to. I shouldn’t even have to say that. Why don’t more PR people do it? The reason pitches are inappropriate is because making them work requires reading and a real interest in the industry you’re promoting. You have to care about it. We all want emails from people who really understand what we do, why we do it, and who are sophisticated about their own industries and who can speak the language. So, I guess the tip here is to really consume the press in your areas.

I don’t think you’ll ever get a 23-year-old communications major able to talk to me about my robotics interest in the same way as the engineer who created the product. So another major tip here or area of focus for PR people should be coaching the guy in the know and plugged into the development process on how to reach out to me himself—not some entry-level PR person who doesn’t even get the product. This is facilitating, not gatekeeping. If this is the only thing we can change about PR in our lifetime, it would be enough.”

Think about the facilitator/gatekeeper analogy…Is this the Public Relations 2.0 model?