This week, The New York Times published an article – Swatting at a Swarm of Public Relations Spam – about the number of unwanted emails reporters’ field from PR professionals every day. The premise? Because PR professionals have unlimited access to reporters’ contact information through media databases such as Cision and Vocus, we are flooding their inboxes with emails and story ideas completely irrelevant to their beats.
In this PR professional’s opinion, it was a bit of a low blow for “The Haggler” to claim that everyone in PR sends nothing but un-researched pitches and mindless spam.
As PR pros, we work with the media every day – and media contact databases play a big part in helping us do our jobs. From pulling together outlet information for our clients, to creating client-specific media lists for our pitches and releases, these tools act as go-to sources. But they are not tools we use in a vacuum.
I can’t speak for all PR professionals, but I know that my colleagues and I perform extensive due diligence when preparing reporter pitches. Whether by searching their recent articles, checking their bios and reading their latest tweets, we do our best to craft and send only customized pitches that we think will pique an individual reporter’s interest. While we can’t always guarantee an exact fit, I promise we try our hardest – if the end goal is to get our clients in the media, how would sending pointless, unguided pitches benefit us?
The call to action “The Haggler” proposes in his article – for reporters to request that their contact information be removed from media databases – is a scary thought, and it left us scratching our heads. What would journalists do without PR? How would they find their sources, gain access to top-level executives, or showcase different points of view via guest columns?
What I propose is a happy medium. As PR professionals, we promise to perform our due diligence before sending out a less-than-tailored pitch. Journalists, we ask you for your feedback. If a pitch isn’t the right fit, if your beat has since changed, or if you’re simply not interested, let us know! Your feedback will be appreciated, and it will lead to a better relationship – not to mention better pitches – in the future.
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