Or is all the Bad PR drying up?
When this blog started I was getting at least one Bad PR experience per day and at least one per week that was worth writing about. I used to just forget about the mediocre Bad PR stories, safe in the knowledge that a real corker would come along soon enough and I'd be able to rant for a bit. Bad PR It was like the never ending bottle of crap booze.
But over the past few weeks things seemed to have dried up....
Maybe Bad PR has won the war....Maybe it's the credit crunch...??
I'm off out of the country later today, and won't return until January.
There's a part of me that hopes the Bad PR returns in 2009.
So, er, Merry Christmas I suppose.
Friday, 12 December 2008
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Why have a dog and bark yourself?
It might come as a surprise to readers of this blog, but I have a lot of sympathy for PRs. It's a tough job, pleasing your clients while pleasing journalists is an unenviable task. An impossible mission at times. Though, at other times it's very f*cking easy, which is why I rant here....
Like most magazines, we're not news led, by the time we've been printed and distributed the multitude of daily web news services will have covered the news and consigned it to the waste bin of their archives.
We do, however, re-produce some of the previous month's bigger stories as briefs, adding a bit of value where possible. The briefs pages by their nature include quite a few different stories, often accompanied by the odd photo.
We always do the briefs pages last, so the news is as up to date as possible, which means we need a quick turnaround. So when I send a message off to a press@company.com media relations contact, requesting a photo, there's a much better chance that a photo will get published if I get sent one back. If, on the other hand, I get sent a link to an online repository, where I need to register - except I can't because the site is always down - there is a much greater chance that I'll write it off and get on with something else.
The thing is, if I ask a PR for a photo, they shouldn't really tell me to go and get it myself. I know it sounds lazy, but hey, I'm busy and part of the PRs role is serving the journo while serving the client. If I get asked to get something myself, I won't. And then nobody wins. It's not like I'm biting my nose off to spite my face, I'll just print the photo that the PR who could be arsed has sent in.
Like most magazines, we're not news led, by the time we've been printed and distributed the multitude of daily web news services will have covered the news and consigned it to the waste bin of their archives.
We do, however, re-produce some of the previous month's bigger stories as briefs, adding a bit of value where possible. The briefs pages by their nature include quite a few different stories, often accompanied by the odd photo.
We always do the briefs pages last, so the news is as up to date as possible, which means we need a quick turnaround. So when I send a message off to a press@company.com media relations contact, requesting a photo, there's a much better chance that a photo will get published if I get sent one back. If, on the other hand, I get sent a link to an online repository, where I need to register - except I can't because the site is always down - there is a much greater chance that I'll write it off and get on with something else.
The thing is, if I ask a PR for a photo, they shouldn't really tell me to go and get it myself. I know it sounds lazy, but hey, I'm busy and part of the PRs role is serving the journo while serving the client. If I get asked to get something myself, I won't. And then nobody wins. It's not like I'm biting my nose off to spite my face, I'll just print the photo that the PR who could be arsed has sent in.
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