I sometimes wonder about our profession. I really wonder.
Hot on the heels of our last story on how not to pitch blogs another story has emerged but this time discussing PR people hiding their identity in their pitches. Except of course that their identity becomes very apparent from their pitch and their follow up.
Is this the basis of good communication? I don’t think so.
TechDirt has published a thoroughly depressing story entitled “Sneaky PR People Discover Blogs” which details attempts by PR people to place stories as neutral third parties.
What’s going on with that?
PR people must live and die by their credibility. If you are a credible source it opens great opportunities for you and vice versa.
The problem here is that when these “practitioners” try and be clever, they hurt everyone in the profession through their stupidity.
I think it’s time to call an end to this rubbish. Do your job properly and you’ll find there’s no need for cloak and dagger tactics. It’s “practitioners” like these that make all our jobs harder.
Give it a rest.
“I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the past year or so with PR people discovering – but not quite understanding – blogs. Some have a handle on it, but others miss the mark by quite a wide margin. This all became very clear last month when a PR person tried to convince me to write a story about a company he worked for – without identifying the simple (and important) fact that he worked for them.”
More from Dan Gillmor and G2Blog.
Murphy's Law 