Three things that annoy journalists

Date: October 2, 2015

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Comments 32

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Our colleagues in public relations still have a lot to learn about the media.

The Absolutely Fabulous approach to PR does more harm than good.

The phone rings. It's an unidentified number, so I pick it up because I think it's the boss. It's not. It's a PR person wanting to know if I'm coming to an event.

I try to keep the annoyance out of my voice when I'm talking to her, but it's extremely hard not to.

I don't have anything personally against the woman on the other end of the line, but years of having to deal with incompetent public relations people means I'm immediately dubious when I'm speaking to one. I should also say the great ones are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. But if you're looking for a recommendation I'm more than happy to give one.

However, I'm even more annoyed at the moment because over the past few weeks I've experienced a higher than average number of grievances with these people.

This was compounded by a PR person recently verbally abusing, then hanging up on, one of my best contributors because he was unhappy with the way she wrote a story about one of his clients.

So in an effort to once again help them understand how journalists operate – because it strikes me, many have no idea – here are the top three things PR people do that contribute to their poor reputation:

1. Asking when a story will be published

As I've written about before, I don't run the news agenda, so I can't tell you when your story will appear. What's published depends on what's happening in the real world, something that is out of the hands of journalists. We don't make the news, we just write about it.

However, I can guarantee if you ask me when your story will appear, it will go straight to the bottom of the pile.

I have about 50 stories on the go at any one time; most not written by me, but by contributors. These stories, generally, contain at least three sources. So each day, I get about 10 requests from PR people asking me when a particular story will appear. Often I don't know and, even if I do, I don't have time to go back and check.

Here's a tip PR people: use Google alerts or a media monitoring service and that will tell you when your story has appeared.

2. Asking for immaterial details to be fixed

In the last week alone, I was asked to go and change the title of someone (who I feel like naming and shaming but won't) from founder to co-founder. Then I was asked to change the number of apartments in a property development from 322 to 323; a change of one apartment. These details are not material to the story and I can guarantee readers do not care one bit whether I make this change or not.

If a PR person, or their talent, has given a journalist incorrect information, it's not up to the journalist to change the story. If there are factual inaccuracies in an article then, of course, it's up to us to correct that and we will publish a retraction if we have gotten something seriously wrong, which we do all the time.

Asking a journalist to make tiny changes is just going to put them offside, which doesn't do the agency in question or its clients any favours. I've already written about how I get up at 5am to start work. Don't make my job any more difficult by bothering me with nonsense.

3. Promising talent you don't have access to

I was flabbergasted recently when a PR (whom I suspect might actually be using journalists as a leverage point to win clients by promising to get businesses she does not actually have on her books into the media) put forward not one but two spokespeople for a story I was working on, only to turn around and tell me neither was available.

Do not put people forward for stories unless you have a relationship with them. The upshot of this is that I will never again use her clients in stories, because I can't trust that this woman will deliver. She wasted my time and hers as a result of this behaviour.

There's a real opportunity for an industry body to start licensing public relations people, which would require ongoing professional development, to stop the chancers from ruining the reputation of the PRs out there who do a good job.

There are plenty of great PRs out there with whom I have an excellent relationship and I don't want in any way to take away from the great work these people do. However, their job is made much more difficult by the nincompoops.

Journalists and PR people have a necessarily co-dependent relationship. It's often fractious because of the unethical behaviour of the latter. However, it doesn't need to be that way. It's just unfortunate that's the situation all too often.

32 comments so far

Wwwwoooah! You have a tough gig. I opened this piece to share your lament. But I don't get badgered nearly as much as you do. Most of the PRs I work with and have done so for 20 or so years, are my friends, or at least friendly. Some, I grant you, are fly by nights or extremely green, but they may improve with experience. So, my grand grievance is PDFs.
PDFs. That's all. They are rubbish: ill-formatted, with corrupt fonts, links that often don't work and weird spacing and icons if, like me, you copy and paste quotes or stats.
DON'T SEND THEM. Send word docs as attachments, or text in the body of the email. Even hard copy is more acceptable in my books.
Thank you.

Commenter

jb

Location

gc

Date and time

October 02, 2015, 9:09AM
- Obviously you don't work in IT - or you have a fabulous anti-virus as word documents are still a great way to get infected. Many businesses still don't accept documents from unfamiliar senders unless they are a pdf. pdf's don't execute macros (which is why you have to copy and paste urls - rather then clicking on them to be open automatically). OK - so it's an extra step - but worth it for the safety of your computer/network. There has been a lull in infections caused by them - but the macro-viruses are back.
  Macro-viruses are on the rise again http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/2240241180/Macro-viruses-reemerge-in-Word-Excel-files
  Weird fonts and bad formatting - that's laziness on the part of the sender to not use a font that works when whatever tool they are using to change a document to pdf.
  
  Commenter
  
  CityDweller
  
  Date and time
  
  October 02, 2015, 9:58AM
- You're right - I don't work in IT. And yes, I do have all the protection I can pay my IT consultant to apply to my PC (sorry, not trendy Mac, workhorse PC - I am a mere typist). I stand by the request: Please send text in body of email and lovely 1-2 meg images as attachments. Ta.
  
  Commenter
  
  jb
  
  Location
  
  gc
  
  Date and time
  
  October 03, 2015, 7:29AM
"journalists. We don't make the news, we just write about it."
Really ? Most of the stories I read are rehashed from somewhere else and the "journo's" name stuck at the top.
Your article is one of the exceptions.
"2. Asking for immaterial details to be fixed"
It's the journos job to be accurate and google can be used to make sure.

Commenter

Really

Date and time

October 02, 2015, 11:09AM
- I think you're missing the general gist of what she's saying, which is that 'immaterial' facts are not relevant to spend her time changing, just as the examples she quoted.
  Perhaps you are a PR person yourself and are feeling a little bruised by her comments hitting too close to home?
  
  Commenter
  
  Amaron
  
  Location
  
  Oh Really?
  
  Date and time
  
  October 02, 2015, 11:30AM
- or an online subscriber feeling bemused about their value.
  
  Commenter
  
  Memo-to-memo
  
  Location
  
  memo-land
  
  Date and time
  
  October 02, 2015, 4:09PM
- Amaron
  "I think you're missing the general gist of what she's saying, which is that 'immaterial' facts are not relevant to spend her time changing, just as the examples she quoted."
  It isn't just these facts that she might consider immaterial, it's other in other articles as well. Like Airline incidents where the airline clearly states a 4 engines Boeing 747 was involved but the media throw up any photo that suits and often even a 2 engine Airbus A330, as long as it has the right colours. Attention to detail is lacking.
  And no, I am not a PR person. Most journos are not journos anymore.
  
  Commenter
  
  Reallyreply
  
  Date and time
  
  October 03, 2015, 1:34AM
- No, you're wrong. A journalist shouldn't have to check the facts in a press release but as someone who works in PR, I know I have to check the facts my client provides because usually, they have no idea. Once a release has been issued I NEVER ask for a change unless it's something really necessary, and that doesn't happen anyway. I've had clients say, "Oh, been, can actually change something after the release has been approved and I always so, no, bad luck (but I may ask the journo depending on my relationship with that journo). A journalist should only have to check the facts on something they're investigating from scratch.
  
  Commenter
  
  Aisha Brown
  
  Date and time
  
  October 03, 2015, 1:11PM
- Facts are EVERYTHING. The quality of journalism is in part measured as to accuracy - not to mention the quality of the writing itself. But sadly in an age of click-bait, word-bytes, attention seeking in an attention overloaded world - journalism is hardly about quality any more.
  Conversely on my list of things that annoy me about journalists. Its that they not publish something they had agreed not to publish, having been told explicitly that it was information not for publication - but published it anyway. Just one reason I simply don't trust journalists.
  
  Commenter
  
  Beeb
  
  Location
  
  Sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  October 03, 2015, 3:28PM
- Reallyreply, I'm with you on this one.,
  A lack of attention to details in an article can suggest to a knowledgeable reader that the overall story is likely flawed as well. I see this in articles attempting to deal with technology, and it's amusing to read some of the journalists' replies when I have pointed out errors in the past ("It wasn't me, it was the typesetter, or the sub-editor, or someone else ..."). Another is anything military: I've seen pictures of wheeled fighting vehicles captioned as "tanks" and vice-versa, pictures of aircraft with "Air Force" or "Navy" in big letters on the side captioned as "Army planes", members at enlisted rank referred to as officers, Army brigadiers being referred to as being in the Navy, etc, etc.
  What the journalists don't seem to realise is that the average reader doesn't know about all this PR stuff - they only know that a journalist has put their name to a finished article - and it is that journalist's reputation which is sullied when inaccuracies (even small ones) are allowed to appear in a story.
  
  Commenter
  
  Meetwo
  
  Date and time
  
  October 04, 2015, 11:07AM

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