Why PR Pros Can't Treat Journalists Like A Punching Bag

Bad public relations professionals make me cringe. I don't consider this to be an easy profession, but there are far too many bad PR pros out there that give the rest of the industry a bad name.

I follow dozens of journalists on Twitter and they will frequently post about bad pitches, off-topic press releases and general pet peeves of theirs when it comes to my profession. There are many more public relations representatives in the world than there are journalists, which puts them in a position of power. They are the gatekeepers to what becomes news and what doesn't. Adhere to their requests or fail to see your company name in the headlines.

At first, I feel my blood boil when I see them bad-mouthing PR pros. Then they post about the pitch/release and why they're frustrated becomes abundantly clear. When a reporter covers health and fitness, don't pitch them on auto news. In my world, pitching a cloud reporter on the topic of hardware is tantamount to a glove slap and a challenge of their honor.

Misguided pitches are one the surefire ways to get ignored by a reporter on future efforts. Journalists are not stupid and can tell when a pitch has good intentions behind it, but may have just found its way into their inbox instead of their colleague's. What they can't stand, and what they shouldn't have to put up with, are pitches that don't even fall into the realm of their coverage scope. Reporters at the top of their industry will receive anywhere from 50-60 pitches a day--and that's probably on the conservative side--so they do not have time to put up with bad PR pros blasting them with an irrelevant press release.

PR people will be quick to pin the blame on their clients. As PR is truly a job in the service industry, we are at the behest of our clients' requests. But any good PR professional knows when to push back and how to set expectations. This prevents you from having to reach out to the Wall Street Journal when you should be contacting the Boston Herald.

We have to stop pounding these reporters with these poorly constructed, off-topic and ill-timed pitches and press releases. They can't cover everything and your best chance of being that nugget is to really tailor and target your pitches to fit their coverage area.

And we need to convince them that we aren't just robots that believe in blasting press releases and other content our clients give us. Only once we have done that can we change the power dynamic between us and preserve the symbiotic relationship that should exist.