17 April 2006
PR people
Back in what now seems almost a former life, I used to do PR and Marketing for various theatres, dance companies, galleries, and so on in the UK. Of course, PR should come under marketing and there should be an entirely integrated strategy for all forms of communication. But directors, actors, choreographers, musicians, etc. are all far more in love with seeing their pictures in the papers than they are with the arcana of direct mail campaigns although those are the things that sell seats. So press offices in theatres tend to be separate and have more clout. Indeed, when I worked at the National Theatre in London as Sales and Marketing Manager once of the main purposes of the Press Office seemed to be to shaft the Marketing Department on every possible occasion.
But these days I spend a fair bit of time dealing with PRs, and they can be extremely helpful. On the other hand they can be extremely hopeless. I have a lot of sympathy for the pressures they come under, and about how crudely their success or failure will be judged by their superiors. It's the crudity of the latter that sees fam trips (which I rarely do) stuffed with absolute no hopers, and press launches and shindigs the same. The more 'journalists' the merrier, and never mind the quality.
But read on:
Inside Story: What annoys journalists about PRs?
Last week we asked PRs to tell us what most got up their noses about the journalists they have to deal with. Now it's our turn to list PRs' annoying traits
Published: 17 April 2006
David Aaronovitch,Times columnist
Like most journalists, if they do stuff for me then I like them; if I have to do stuff for them - like plug their book - then I don't. Our hatred or liking of them is purely instrumental and selfish. It's got nothing whatever to do with our function or our dignity; it's to do with what they're offering.
I try not to ask PRs to do too much. Having sat on the other side of the desk I feel some sympathy for them. Having sat alongside journalists who expect absolutely everything to be done for them, for free, and right now, and how about another bottle of wine, and felt disgusted, I never ask for anything beyond what's necessary to get the job done. With some PRs, however, it becomes almost impossible to speak because if you even show a slight interest in something, a free bottle of it (or whatever) appears in your hotel room. Last year the PR at the Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai did a lot of running around for me as a result of my own stupidity--replacing something lost, and couriering something I'd left behind to me. I didn't ask her to do any of these things, and in fact I insisted up front on paying. But I was never given the opportunity. Of course I appreciate the service (which only fit in with the hotel's general standards, I might add), but I would have been quite happy to pay.
The only thing I dislike doing for PRs is sending copies of clippings. A single story may have had input from travel bureaux, tour operators, and multiple hotels and restaurants, and each PR person who says to me, "Oh, and you will send a copy when it's published, won't you?" seems to me not to have been paying attention to the world, imagining instead that she is operating in isolation. If I followed up each of these requests, a life already spent more on administration than on writing would be yet further burdened. And the costs in time, photocopying, and postage, significant.
I wouldn't say I don't like PRs who do this, and when I know that it's a small operation (typically in fact too small to have a PR) then I do my best to follow-up. But I do get irritated with large countries that have large tourism bureaux that ought to be paying for a cuttings agency.
John Humphrys, Presenter, Today
It's a silly notion that we're in the same business. Because we're not. Good journalists are in the business of revealing, and PRs are in the business, frequently, of concealing.
And of concealing that they are concealing, if they have any sense. There's nothing more irritating than being openly lied to, especially when it's so rarely necessary with travel writing. Rare the story published in newspapers that has anything other than positive things to say about any particular travel experience. Most irritating is the broad statement of racial harmony, usually issued without the subject having been raised, which strikes a false note straight away, and is obviously false. I've had this happen in Fiji, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and, of course, China.
Lindsay Nicholson, Editorial director of NatMag (The National Magazine Company)
PRs who ring up "to see if you've got the press release". If I wanted to follow it up, I would have already done so, wouldn't I? And I don't go to launches on boats - or anywhere else where there is no escape!
I had a message on my answering machine last week from a tourism board checking that an email had come through, and I took it as a courtesy. Email often goes missing, and this was important. But during my own brief period as editor of a magazine I certainly tired quickly of all the people phoning with their own agendas, something I bear in mind when pitching stories by phone myself.
As for going to press launches where you can't escape--good advice. There's something wrong with PR when these things are viewed in advance as something to be endured, and rarely turn out to be anything else. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I rarely go to these things, but last week I actually did attend one because I knew that two people I wanted to talk to would be there. I put up with a dull speech telling me nothing I could possibly use for a story, waded through the freeloaders, had several false conversations with people who seemed to think they knew me (although after about ten minutes one decided she didn't after all), finally got to have the two conversations I did want to have, and left. But in order to get journalists to these things these days there has to be an offer not only of food (rather good on this occasion) and drink (I don't indulge much), but a prize draw. I won a cook book that despite being West Coast Fusion (yawn) had a couple of things I might actually try to make if I ever get time for cooking again, and an insulated coffee mug. That means I now have something to talk about. I've heard people in cafés here have 20-minute conversations about insulated coffee mugs. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm a travel writer is to get away from this sort of conversation.
Anthony Noguera, Editor-in-chief, Emap East - Arena, Zoo and Arena Homme Plus
When they send me long, overexcited, exclusive pitches that get the name of the magazine confused with a direct competitor is always a good one- and it happens so much it's just not funny any more.
Back in my very early days when I was Publicity Manager for a touring dance company in the UK, there were two flagship arts programmes on limited number of television channels available. I wrote a long pitch letter to send to both. This was back in the days of electronic typewriters but before built-in memory, so the thing had to be typed out twice, with a different contact name and programme name inserted where appropriate. I'm pretty certain I then managed to put the letters in the wrong envelopes. We ended up on one of the programmes anyway, but I never dared to ask.
However, it does seem to me that PR attracts an awful lot of dim-witted people of the kind who still need their mothers to tie their shoelaces. Or perhaps its just that the budgets of those countries using agencies means the account ends up with the intern. I've written extensively on New Zealand for a number of publications with global reach, but I can't get the country's current agency to remember my name or to answer simple queries about another visit. One of the conversations I had at the PR event mentioned above, led to my being sent a press kit with important information about that company's services. Shame that whoever was responsible couldn't even copy my address from my business card to the envelope correctly, and it was a miracle (especially given that Canada Post was involved) that the package ever reached me. Such errors are fairly commonplace.
John Sootheran, Editor of Max Power
This is exceedingly shallow, but what my team hates about female PRs is that they all sound like a cross between Mariella Frostrup and Nigella Lawson on the phone, ie, super saucy, and of course they're being nice to you (and when women do that all men think they're in with a chance). Then, when you meet them, half of them have faces like gargoyles. It's that "Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch" thing, but for voices. This misrepresentation needs legislating for under advertising standards or something as it's so misleading to young, testosterone-laden motoring journalists. By the way, we're no oil paintings!
The whole flirtation thing is an issue. I know journalists who just revel in it and spend the whole of fam trips doing nothing but flirt outrageously with PRs who are almost universally young, blonde, leggy, or mini-skirted, or all of these. Needless to say, the poor PR has no opportunity to say, "Eff off you fat, drunken, git," and many start the process in the first place. There are those who insist on kissing you on both cheeks like an old friend, until it gets to the point where you automatically expect to kiss PRs until suddenly catching a look of reluctance on a face as it slides by, and realise that you've inadvertently crossed the border to the slimy side, without having any intention of doing so. These days I try to keep a safe distance, although there are a few PRs of whom I've become fond both because if they are not genuinely friendly they are so good I'm utterly unable to tell, and because nevertheless they provide me with what I need to know, set out what else is available if it interests me, and then leave me to make my own decisions on what I need for my story.
The best people I've dealt with of late are Sian Griffiths, Lamey Chang and colleagues at The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, who have a large and sophisticated idea of PR management, and who are very helpful and generous with suggestions even on things that will take my attention away from the hotel itself. I should also mention one Tony Poletto of Melbourne, who had the benefit of being both male and down-to-earth, and entirely interested in the idea of what would be best for my story. He made sure I got absolutely everything I needed without a hitch. Anne Cousineau who acts for the Australian tourism people in Canada is excellent to deal with: efficient, quick to response, and always concentrated on getting the stories.
Jo Elvin, Editor of Glamour
When someone who has obviously never even looked at the magazine fails to check what it is we actually do. I had an e-mail not long ago (and I'm being totally honest with you when I say I can't remember which PR company it was) from a girl saying, "Hi Jo, just wanted to check that you're still the restaurant reviewer for Glamour." A) Erm ... No, I'm the editor and b), we have never ever featured one restaurant review in the magazine. It's the absolute gold standard of laziness.
I'm on the PR side of the desk here. There's no point in pitching stories to a magazine without seeing what departments and feature slots they have available and keeping up with what they've been publishing recently. Only irritates the editors if you don't, and nullifies any future chance of making a sale.
Simon Calder, Travel editor, The Independent
I don't bear any animosity towards them but you would think if they had seen my column - The Man Who Pays His Way - that they would realise that I don't want to go on an all-expenses paid trip to the Caribbean. Nevertheless, I get about 10 calls a week offering such things.
Calder's travel section is certainly one of the better ones. He's not an easy man to deal with, however, and the prohibition against accepting free hotel nights, etc., makes it hard to pitch there. It's many years since I have.
Giles Coren, Times columnist and restaurant critic
I hate gigantic emailed press releases - two megabyte mothers full of jpegs of rubbish bars that crash my laptop. PRs who send them deserve to be eaten by wild pigs.
Agreed. Especially when I'm travelling somewhere with slow dial-up for high prices and I need to get at mail that's behind these items in the queue. Massive press kits with reams of information on the hotel GM's golf handicap come a close second. Part of every trip is spent binning 75% of the contents. I sympathise with the PRs who have to keep their MD's egos happy, but the cardboard folder and most of the contents end up in the bin as I'm not going to carry them (along with a dozen others) half way around the world at the risk of excess baggage charges. I do hand them straight back whenever I can, having extracted the key information I need.
John Kampfner, Editor of the New Statesman
Asking for the most absurdly long plugs at the end of pieces.
Or, indeed any plug. Or any guarantee that something will be printed. Since it's something I have no control over, and since I'm not for sale, no such guarantee is ever going to be forthcoming. In fact as a general rule PRs should learn that if anyone agrees to such a thing they are not publishing in any medium that a reader is going to take seriously, and the person agreeing is not to be taken seriously. Spend your budget elsewhere. As I've already said, I make a point of accepting nothing for free unless I expect to be able to publish in manner worthwhile for all of us. But if your hotel or trip turns out to be hopeless, the best you can hope for is that I won't say anything at all about it.
The worst case I came across was when JAL was flying me from Hong Kong to Tokyo and on to Vancouver. I thought we had agreement until an email arrived setting out the text about JAL services and packages holidays the company expected to appear alongside the article. This was a 3500-word feature for the Sunday Times, and the airline was given short shrift. They flew me anyway.
Toby Young, Restaurant and theatre critic
Having sex with a PR person is a bit like a billionaire having sex with Anna Nicole Smith: however much they appear to enjoy it you can never be completely sure that they don't have an ulterior motive. It's quite easy to be lured to the dark side as a journalist by a gorgeous, pouting, 20-something PR girl offering you all kinds of inducements to write nice things about their client.
I've never gone that far (for obvious reasons) but a lot of female PRs behave in a manner which would indicate sex was on the menu in any other circumstances. Only the stupid would take that seriously, or, taking advantage of any offer, would see it as anything other than business. And what happens now if you don't publish?
But one of the least likeable things about PR, as about networking in general, is the way it undermines the institution of friendship, borrowing its motions and mode of speech for purposes nothing to do with friendship at all. It's very hard indeed to know just where you are with PR people.
In China it seems often to be taken as a normal part of a PR's duties (in Chinese-run operations), and I hope they feel happier to deal with foreign journalists who don't generally take the same view. A Japanese-run hotel once dropped large hints that some top-of-the-range professional company would be provided if I wished. I didn't wish, so I can't report further.
William Sitwell, Editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated
When they ring up and ask if I can send over our features list. "Can you just tell us what features you'll be running in your July issue?" As if they have no idea of exclusivity and how magazines like to keep their ideas to themselves. To be fair, it's often PR minions who have been made to put in these calls without knowing what they're doing.
It should be clear by now that many who answer here are simply putting down the latest irritation.
I once heard from someone who'd attended a training session on theatre PR that a journalist had quoted me as an example of how not to call her. Her objection was that I'd begun by telling her my name.
I still haven't understood that the basic courtesies need to be dropped. While there are some similarities to the popular image of having to pitch a movie to a producer in a single sentence, saying briefly who you are and who you work for seems unavoidable on the phone. I'm quite sure that had I not said who I was, the first question would have been to ask me precisely that. I wish I could remember the stupid woman's name.
Alex Thomson, Channel 4 News chief correspondent
You get these PRs so utterly wedded to their boss/firm/product/ army - you name it - that they can't accept any criticism or allegation without turning everything into a personal argument. You keep saying it's not Channel 4 News making the allegation but some punter and we're just following it up, but they just don't get it. However much you spell it out.
Sometime in the next few weeks I have to re-contact an NGO whose operations in China I took to task in a long feature about three years ago. I have to revisit the topic for another publication, and I'll be interested to see what kind of response I get.
David Parsley, Editor of London newpaper City AM
My personal pet hate is when a PR asks me what sort of stories I'm interested in. I've had it on every paper I've worked on. What do they expect me to say? "Oh, I really want the rubbish no one else will take - that'd be great." There are far too many PRs who don't attempt to get a newspaper in before trying to sell a story.
Again, travel writers pitching stories themselves need to be aware of what the paper uses. And, of course, first rights in the territory covered are needed. But for freelances, at least, the query "What kind of story?" is a valid one. The trouble is editors would rather you worked it out from looking at what's been published--not usually much of a strain in these days of the Internet.
Some do publish guidelines, but in most cases they only think of what should be in those because they are forced to do so. While some may never want to see a simple puff piece about a new luxury hotel (something I don't write anyway), many are simply in the market for good writing, or an unusual angle they haven't covered before, and will print things their guidelines say they should like at all.
One editor I work with regularly who runs a syndicate tells me that the receiving editors all want pictures with people in them. Yet when he reluctantly accepted a story on Japanese castles which had no people in its pictures at all, it turned out to be the most published story, with more space given to photos, that I'd ever given him before or since.
Ann Leslie, Daily Mail foreign correspondent
What enrages me are the e-mails that flood my inbox from silly women who address me chummily as "Ann" (usually misspelt with an E) although we've never met, and who - at semi-literate length - gush to me about some "new, exciting" face cream or other. Don't they do any research? I have never knowingly written about face cream in my life, don't intend to start, and would never, ever find the subject "exciting". They're wasting their - and my - time. Why does anyone pay money to these bimbos to spew out this wasteful rubbish?
Agreed. Poor targeting is a real irritation. But on the other hand why does anyone pay Ann Leslie to write the rubbish she does?
Gill Hudson, Editor of Radio Times
I love our PR on Radio Times because he really knows his stuff, uses his initiative, gives you straight answers, responds immediately, has an absolute respect for deadlines and always delivers what he promises. Which reveals, by default, what I can't stand about PRs, doesn't it?
George Pascoe-Watson, Political editor, The Sun
PR people who don't read every newspaper - it shows.
Conor McNicholas, Editor of NME
The problem with PRs is that they're always buying you beer. Endless alcohol. Just at the moment you try to leave a gig to get tucked up for an early night there'll suddenly be another pint in your hand, or a bourbon or a vodka Red Bull or flaming slippery nipple. And in the interests of good relations you just can't say no, can you? Next thing you know it's two in the morning and you're in a hotel room doing naked charades with Kasabian. It's their fault, I tell you, not mine.
Getting endless drinks poured down you happens to travel writers, too. I don't drink much, and I don't greatly care for it. I drink when wine is part of the story, but I don't want to arrive at my meal with more than one cocktail under my belt. I want to pay attention to what I'm eating, and what I'm saying about it.
Actually, the most irritating PRs (and most are not irritating at all) are those who insist on being at your elbow when you want the freedom to write (or discreetly dictate) what you think. Worse still are those who ask for your opinion to your face. Like the flirtation, when it happens, no conversation of this kind is likely to be real.
Kevin Maguire, Associate editor (politics), Daily Mirror
Government and party disinformation officers who ring up at 5.30pm to spin a pile of old cobblers that they are under the mistaken impression is worthy of the next day's paper. Ring them at 10.30pm with a legitimate question and you can't get past the secretary. Spin doctors with secretaries. What ridiculous self-aggrandisement.
Eva Simpson, One of the Daily Mirror's 3am Girls
Being lied to. When an interview you've been chasing ends up with another paper and they tell you they don't know how it got there, or when you're promised an hour with someone and it ends up being five minutes. I'd rather know the truth. PRs who are uncontactable and permanently on voicemail. There's only so many times that you can hear the line "I'm on the phone or away from my desk" without screaming.
Lorraine Candy, Editor of Elle
Like William Sitwell, I really really object when a PR I have never met and don't know of e-mails or rings me asking for a "future features list" - what a ridiculous question. I may as well fax the Elle list to Vogue instead or put it on the internet for all the glossy rivals to see. Why would anyone in their right mind ask such a stupid question? It's especially annoying from a food PR or interiors PR - who have obviously never read Elle and not clocked that we don't do food or interiors.
Nicholas Coleridge, Managing director of Condé Nast
Evening events that start later than 7pm, which means infuriatingly pointless hanging about after work, and presentations with more than two speeches maximum. These days there is a ghastly fad at cosmetics launches for having three, four or even more, with a succession of PRs, managers, international bosses and scientists all repeating variations on the same speech.
As I said, rare the press launch that anyone actually looks forward to. Should PR people be getting the message here?
Dylan Jones, Editor of GQ
When I put this to the features team they said it would be impossible to answer in a single sentence. They at first proposed a feature and then decided on a special issue. With a supplement. And a cover-mounted DVD. In fact, we think there's a book in it....
Rod Liddle, Columnist
It's very simple. Our job is to try to tell the truth. Their job is to try to prevent us from finding out what the truth is. They tell us lies and they mangle the language to disguise the truth, and the greatest example of it is Alastair Campbell. I have absolutely no interest or time for them whatsoever. I do accept that they do a job and that people want them to do that job, but as journalists it is our job to see through them.
A bit extreme, at least in my world. There are times when good PRs save the day.
As long as I remember that the job of the PR person is to show their hotel, tour, restaurant, attraction, in the best light, then I'm quite capable of nosing about myself, talking to third parties, coming to my own conclusions, and passing them on to the reader.
And no amount of free alcohol or flirtation is going to change that.
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