The Long PR Tale

The thing most PR people have dreaded, but knew was inevitable, has happened. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired Magazine, got fed up with foolish, misdirected pitches from PR people and up and posted a long list of email addresses of the offenders. Unfortunately, someone from Sparkpr made the list. Me.

And of course, this angry post has been ricocheting across the blogosphere for two days now, like he knew it would. And other journalists have, naturally, joined in on the rant. Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing really went off. Ryan Block at Engadget is much more measured in his reaction. And yes, I have gotten emails from friends in the business about it and, yes, I have been spammed. I have even gotten LinkedIn invitations, as people are seeing this as another way to build their networks.

I totally understand where the frustration comes from. Most of the time those of us at Sparkpr work really hard to research past articles a journo has written to tailor a specific pitch before sending. But when it comes to news announcements, sometime it makes sense to send batch emails to reporters who cover a certain, often very wide, industry like, say, the Internet. I don’t think this is the same as spam. It’s a judgment call.

I own that I made a mistake. I don’t know Chris, and I sent him a pitch that he clearly wasn’t interested in, despite my hopes. Mea culpa, and if he wants to block me from sending him any more pitches, that is his right.

My real problem with Chris Anderson’s rant is that he says he will totally block the whole agency because of one offender. If that were the case a year ago, Chris would have missed the opportunity to keynote at a client’s PHP industry conference, an activity that he actually benefited from. It just seems like overkill, and it sells short the value of PR people to the media. Despite the current cycle of frustration, most reporters will tell you that they have profited from interaction with their PR counterparts. There is a mutual benefit and as the media landscape continues to contract I imagine it will become more so.

Sparkpr puts a big emphasis on taking the time to MEET people, get to know their tastes and preferences from real conversation, so that this can serve as a basis for future online dialogue. But it takes years and years of opportunities to make such connections. Is our awareness heightened? You bet. In an industry where our reputation is what we are measured on, this is impactful, and what this discussion means to me personally has yet to be determined.

The result of this brash posting is that we will all strive to be better in our approaches to journalists, it’s true. Me, especially. But the public flogging will likely have additional consequences, as it plays out over time. Let’s hope they are not out of proportion to the offense.

[Update: Chris Anderson contacted Sparkpr to clarify his position on blocking PR contacts. Though his post states that “The following is just the last month's list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list,” I am relieved to hear that he is only blocking the specific offenders. Thanks for clarifying the policy, Chris.]