At one point or another, you’ll piss off a journalist. Sometimes you’re just doing your job. Sometimes you’re just doing your job BADLY. Other times you’ll raise their ire for no apparent reason.But before you suggest a gruff editor wasn’t held enough by his mother, suck it up. Second only to coverage, we seek closure in media relations, a definite response. If your response is tinged with bile, consider it without the emotion and move on – NEVER take it personally.
A new site is channeling journo rage. It’s named, appropriately enough, AngryJournalist.com.
This site became an instant Bad Pitch Blog guilty pleasure. We know the media have a tough life too. But this site helps detail the extent of it.
Comments are anonymous, but not permalinked (grrr). So here are a few relevant gems we’ve read.
----------Angry Journalist #1091PR people who don’t do their research. They insist on wasting my time to promote their pathetic story which if they knew ANYTHING about our paper would know that we’re not interested at all. As well as asking if I would like to meet with a representative from their organisation when they visit a town four hours away from me.
They’re probably getting paid more than me too…bastards.
Angry Journalist #1068I’m angry that the sales manager convinced the general manager to order the news director to have me send a photographer to a grip-and-grin photo op at an advertiser’s business. I had previously told both the sales manager and the general manager in separate phone calls I wasn’t sending anyone because the photo op wasn’t news.
So I sent the photographer, he spent an hour shooting B-Roll of the manufactured event, and guess what? It never aired in any newscast because we had actual real live news to cover. Then the sales manager had the audacity to come in the newsroom and thank me for sending a photographer to cover the event that didn’t make it into a newscast.
Here’s the payback: That sales manager was later fired for lackluster sales. He should’ve been fired for trying to dictate what gets covered in the newsroom.
Angry Journalist #974I’m peeved at the PR lady from the local college. I have to go through her for EVERYTHING. If it’s remotely controversial, she tries to make me ask the questions that I want to ask, ie the finance department, so she can ask them then “get back to me.” Look if I wanted to talk to you about it I would. Just clear finance to talk to me already!
Stupid community college PR people! Egos are larger than anyone I’ve known.
----------Angst-inspired comments. It’s what we love about the internets.
The Middle One uploaded by evaxebratags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | good pitch | bad pitch | bad pitch blog
Well, journalists do have issues with a lot of things. They also need a place to vent out once in a while. I'm currently studying journalism as part of my Mass Communication course so reading those comments should be pretty interesting. And maybe they'll be my eye-openers into this industry as well.
ReplyDeletethe site was funny at first but now it's just sad. good luck journos
ReplyDeleteI hear you anon, but be careful. While media relations is only one component of what we do, what would we do if the journos vanish? Extreme, but you get the idea. Their survival ensures ours.
ReplyDeleteOh spare me #974. There are very good reasons you have to go through the flack for EVERYTHING. Most staff are not aware of, or may forget what is confidential information and what is not. That is especially true when it comes to numbers. One of our jobs is to remind the spokesperson what they can, and can't talk about. Private companies have no obligation to open the kimono to you, and giving out information about something sensitive (let's say a business deal in the works) can hurt the company competitively. When you are dealing with public companies, the stakes are higher. We WANT our people to talk to the press, but don't want anyone in the company to be fired because they didn't know they weren't supposed to mention something that is confidential. Your questions may be trivial, but how do they know that? Easy, you tell the flack what you want and they will set you up with the right person. I've seen too many people burned because they felt they were caught off guard by a reporter. I don't blame the reporter, you are just doing your job. Don't get on my back for doing mine.
ReplyDeleteI wish the person who said that just now would give their name and affiliation, because it's really good but in what context?
ReplyDeleteRichard, don't you know there is no such thing as 'context'? (just kidding). I am just an NY agency exec. Let me give you a real world instance of the above. A client has vendor who asked if they would serve as a reference for other potential clients of theirs. We like to be good partners, so they said "sure." So the vendor pitches a story to a major daily, who asks to speak to a client (i.e. my client). Vendor gives them the name of a mid-level person at my client's company. Reporter calls the guy, but he misunderstood and thought he was talking to someone on the business side of the paper (this vendor has a couple of media clients). He answered questions and gave some numbers as far as cost savings we've achieved with the vendor. The article comes out with a quote from this guy saying "our cost per transaction has gone from $2 to $1 by using this vendor." Now, the result is the client's competition has specifics on their manufacturing costs that they could use to either 1) point to and say that they can beat that, or 2) encourage them to hire our vendor to get the same cost savings. He is an excellent employee but the CEO was none to happy when he read this.
ReplyDeleteNow, if there is any blame here it is with the employee and me (although I try my best to drill it into these guys heads that they call me as soon as they realize they are talking to anyone from the press.) The point about the #924 is that if he called me, or the employee referred him to me, I would have made sure he got useful information for his story that did NOT put this guy in an awkward position with his CEO.
To the post in question, I would NEVER just let a reporter talk to a finance person without knowing what they were going to ask. It is not their job to keep track of what can and can't say externally. That is my job. I am always honest with reporters (and insist my staff is) about telling the reporter what we can, and can't talk about.
Sometimes I wish all so called "business" reporters were required to take a Business 101 course. I don't mind you doing your best to uncover information, and respect you for that, but please treat me with the same respect and understand that just because a company won't reveal every single detail of their operations, doesn't mean they are hiding something for nefarious reasons. Also, the other reason we ask what you want to talk about is to make sure the spokesperson HAS that information for you at the time of the interview saving time for you and us.
and i'm not giving my name or company because basically I am a coward.
I am old enough to remember that when I read a newspaper, I could basically trust the reporting. This is not the case nowadays. Most people writing for papers are not journalists but editorial writers. They let their personal bias seep into their work.
ReplyDeleteSo, this is the state of journalism and media today. If you want people to buy your product, make a good product. Until then, you will continue to see decline.
Overheard in a Starbucks:
ReplyDeleteI run a speaker's bureau.
Well it's a bureau out of new york but I work for it.
What would turn you on
What would be a good resource
what would you want to know
It just seems, put it that way, whenever I get asked to come speak is because somebody recommended me.
I googled some of the other stuff she was screaming out loud to her phone and it turns out she's just a biology professor at a tiny branch campus who has a ton of bad reviews at ratemyprof.com and essentially she wants to quit her day job and become a public speaker. Good luck with that lady!