The PR from hell
18/01/06 12:59 Journalism in practice
Occasionally you find an example of how not to do
something that's so good, you have to share it with
absolutely everybody. I've just got off the phone to
a PR of a major retail chain and had to share this.
I can't name the chain as the story is as yet unpublished and therefore under wraps. However, they were accused of doing something vaguely newsworthy a short while ago, and it's strong enough to use as a hook for a feature. Naturally I wanted to get their input, if only to close the specific issue down in the intro so I could talk more generally in the body of the piece.
So I put the call in. And the PR from hell calls. Sniffy Attitudes R Us, we could call him, or Sniffy for short. What's all this about this old story, he says. I don't think it's that old, I say, well, it is by my standards, he says.
Mistake. Never put a journalist's back up. You can never, ever, win. It's not a bad rule for most business transactions actually.
OK, he says, what do you want to know. Given that I'd already sent a detailed e-mail so he could prepare, that was an odd one. But I ploughed through the e-mail nonetheless. Oh, says Sniffy, we wouldn't comment on that in the press. (As a side note, the client themselves gave me Sniffy's e-mail address but had trouble finding it because they're only using him for the one issue. Which he says they don't talk about to the press.) No comment at all. But I would say we employ thousands of people.
Hang on, I say, that's not strictly relevant.
Yes it is, he says, oh hang on...he goes silent. Anyway, we don't comment to the press. And the other organisation in question is saying ridiculous and untrue things, like [he specifies an allegation that will be in the story]. They're after publicity.
That's a hell of a lot of no-comments. It's made me much more interested in the client and more than ever convinced that I'm onto a good story about them. They'll probably feature more prominently in the published piece now than they would before - if, say, he'd been at least polite and not hinted that I didn't know my job.
Keep it up, Sniffy...
I can't name the chain as the story is as yet unpublished and therefore under wraps. However, they were accused of doing something vaguely newsworthy a short while ago, and it's strong enough to use as a hook for a feature. Naturally I wanted to get their input, if only to close the specific issue down in the intro so I could talk more generally in the body of the piece.
So I put the call in. And the PR from hell calls. Sniffy Attitudes R Us, we could call him, or Sniffy for short. What's all this about this old story, he says. I don't think it's that old, I say, well, it is by my standards, he says.
Mistake. Never put a journalist's back up. You can never, ever, win. It's not a bad rule for most business transactions actually.
OK, he says, what do you want to know. Given that I'd already sent a detailed e-mail so he could prepare, that was an odd one. But I ploughed through the e-mail nonetheless. Oh, says Sniffy, we wouldn't comment on that in the press. (As a side note, the client themselves gave me Sniffy's e-mail address but had trouble finding it because they're only using him for the one issue. Which he says they don't talk about to the press.) No comment at all. But I would say we employ thousands of people.
Hang on, I say, that's not strictly relevant.
Yes it is, he says, oh hang on...he goes silent. Anyway, we don't comment to the press. And the other organisation in question is saying ridiculous and untrue things, like [he specifies an allegation that will be in the story]. They're after publicity.
That's a hell of a lot of no-comments. It's made me much more interested in the client and more than ever convinced that I'm onto a good story about them. They'll probably feature more prominently in the published piece now than they would before - if, say, he'd been at least polite and not hinted that I didn't know my job.
Keep it up, Sniffy...
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