A peace offering for the journalist/PR war
When Wired Managing Editor Chris Anderson threw down this digital gauntlet and added PR executives who sent him irrelevant press releases to his spam blocking list, I knew it was going to cause a ruckus. I didn't, however, expect it to end up in the New York Times Business section, which it did today.
Now I have some sympathy for Chris's position, since my mailbox is similarly full of my share of consumer electronics press releases for products I have no interest in. But I'm reluctant to join Chris's email blocking vendetta against PR people who may get carried away with their email marketing. Why? Because researching any idea or story is never a linear process. And while 90% of those press releases may be distractions, 10% of them actually have a germ of a good idea in them. And in one percent of the cases, the PR person can both provide some insight and put you in contact with people you'd never have spoken to yourself. I've worked with incredibly helpful PR people at Apple, HP, IBM, Intel and others who 1) know their business, and 2) know that their job is to help journalists and analysts write about their companies.
And what about the PR agencies? That's a tougher call, as Chris has noted, largely because they don't have the same depth of knowledge and internal company access. But just blocking specific email addresses isn't going to do the job in the long run. Perhaps a better idea is to provide those offenders with specific email addresses -- perhaps ca-press-release@wired.com -- to send their press releases to. For while a press release may not be what you're looking for 90% of the time, they are more valuable than the Viagra pharmacy ads and Nigerian email scams that make up most spam in the typical spambox. And cutting off professionals trying to do their jobs -- even if they are doing them badly -- just feels wrong.
I think that former Financial Times reporter Tom Foremski has captured some of the puzzlement I feel about this PR fracas. And even better, he proposed a solution to it back in 2006: Let today's archaic press release die a natural death. Instead, deconstruct today's press release package, add tags and other metadata to let journalists find and search for it, and publish links to that information. The investing site SeekingAlpha.com, a Web site that syndicates this blog, already does this today with financial earnings call transcripts and has done so very successfully; there's no reason another site couldn't do this for press releases. It's a very Web-centric view, but that's ideal for reaching the long tail of journalists who don't have a cadre of research assistants, but do have access to the Internet. And best of all, it might get the PR community back in Chris Anderson's graces.
What do you say, PR guys? You have nothing to lose but your Wired blacklist. Just don't send around a press release announcing it, OK?
Now I have some sympathy for Chris's position, since my mailbox is similarly full of my share of consumer electronics press releases for products I have no interest in. But I'm reluctant to join Chris's email blocking vendetta against PR people who may get carried away with their email marketing. Why? Because researching any idea or story is never a linear process. And while 90% of those press releases may be distractions, 10% of them actually have a germ of a good idea in them. And in one percent of the cases, the PR person can both provide some insight and put you in contact with people you'd never have spoken to yourself. I've worked with incredibly helpful PR people at Apple, HP, IBM, Intel and others who 1) know their business, and 2) know that their job is to help journalists and analysts write about their companies.
And what about the PR agencies? That's a tougher call, as Chris has noted, largely because they don't have the same depth of knowledge and internal company access. But just blocking specific email addresses isn't going to do the job in the long run. Perhaps a better idea is to provide those offenders with specific email addresses -- perhaps ca-press-release@wired.com -- to send their press releases to. For while a press release may not be what you're looking for 90% of the time, they are more valuable than the Viagra pharmacy ads and Nigerian email scams that make up most spam in the typical spambox. And cutting off professionals trying to do their jobs -- even if they are doing them badly -- just feels wrong.
I think that former Financial Times reporter Tom Foremski has captured some of the puzzlement I feel about this PR fracas. And even better, he proposed a solution to it back in 2006: Let today's archaic press release die a natural death. Instead, deconstruct today's press release package, add tags and other metadata to let journalists find and search for it, and publish links to that information. The investing site SeekingAlpha.com, a Web site that syndicates this blog, already does this today with financial earnings call transcripts and has done so very successfully; there's no reason another site couldn't do this for press releases. It's a very Web-centric view, but that's ideal for reaching the long tail of journalists who don't have a cadre of research assistants, but do have access to the Internet. And best of all, it might get the PR community back in Chris Anderson's graces.
What do you say, PR guys? You have nothing to lose but your Wired blacklist. Just don't send around a press release announcing it, OK?
Technorati Tags: Chris Anderson, Journalism, PR, Public Relations, The Long Tail, Wired
posted by Carl Howe at
10:56 AM
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