Tuesday, January 10, 2006
A Modest Proposal
The first "A Modest Proposal" of note was a savage satire from Jonathan Swift that proposed eating Irish babies rather than feeding them. Mine is not satirical nor, I hope, savage. I am making this modest proposal because for the second time in two days, I have been spammed by a PR firm with stupid press release. Once again, the sender of the release never bothered to look at what I write about nor to consider that I don't give a fig for anything to do with supermodels and fashion magazines.
Here then is the modest proposal: Whenever a PR firm spams any PR blogger, we out the firm in our blogs and brand them with a Scarlet S for spammer. I propose that this first S go to the firm that sent the nonsensical release to me today. I am happy to name them -- KMR Communications, Inc. Maybe if they are shamed enough in public, offenders will change their ways.
If PR cannot discipline its own, who can? Reporters have bitched for years about misdirected releases and pitches they get by the pound every day. It's time then for PR bloggers to stand together and to stop this stupidity before it overwhelms our own mailboxes.
Here then is the modest proposal: Whenever a PR firm spams any PR blogger, we out the firm in our blogs and brand them with a Scarlet S for spammer. I propose that this first S go to the firm that sent the nonsensical release to me today. I am happy to name them -- KMR Communications, Inc. Maybe if they are shamed enough in public, offenders will change their ways.
If PR cannot discipline its own, who can? Reporters have bitched for years about misdirected releases and pitches they get by the pound every day. It's time then for PR bloggers to stand together and to stop this stupidity before it overwhelms our own mailboxes.
Comments:
I agree in principle, but when you see what happens to those firms in Google, and then you get whiny phone calls (not comments, but phone calls), then you realize it's not worth it.
You just hope they learn a lesson when you respond via email.
You just hope they learn a lesson when you respond via email.
Jim - We'd love to hear from you over at the Bad Pitch Blog.
http://badpitch.blogspot.com/
Send us your bad pitches and we'll post/slay them in the hopes we can at least stop future PR people from poor pitching (and excessive alliteration for that matter).
It is not quite the scarlet letter you're proposing, but it's a start.
Send pitches to badpitchblog AT gmail DOT com?
Cheers!
http://badpitch.blogspot.com/
Send us your bad pitches and we'll post/slay them in the hopes we can at least stop future PR people from poor pitching (and excessive alliteration for that matter).
It is not quite the scarlet letter you're proposing, but it's a start.
Send pitches to badpitchblog AT gmail DOT com?
Cheers!
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