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Persistent offenders are spoiling it for the rest of us

Today’s poll on the PR Week website is interesting.

When asked the question: Is it OK for journalists/bloggers to name and shame persistent PR professionals, 55% said no.  I am surprised about that because we should know and learn from our mistakes.  On the one hand I believe in solidarity for one’s profession – PR gets enough ribbing for being vague and ‘fluffy’.  However, how many times have we seen ranting tweets from journalists fed up of a barrage of un-targeted communications or annoyed by being asked whether they would be ‘printing the press release’.

Only last week I had a conversation with an editor who previously used to send out synopses of upcoming articles to selected PR contacts he knew well.  He told me he had to stop the practice ‘because of a couple of pesky PRs who would bombard his freelancers with irrelevant information’.  Shame, those updates were really useful….their poor practice spoiled it for the rest of us.

PROs who alienate the influencers that are so important to client communications should a) know who they are, b) know that we know who they are, and c) try to do something about improving their ways for the future.

Let’s all learn the difference between professional tenacity and blind persistence.