Pitch, Please: Journalists Sound Off on Media Relations

Right now, we're all busy celebrating the Supreme Court's decision to make same-sex marriage legal nationwide. Before you grab that cocktail, though, summer Friday hours leave time for one more edition of our collaboration with Muck Rack in which we parse the week's responses to good, bad and "what the hell was that?" pitches. First, it's like Tinder but for...oh, never mind: Inbox PR pitch: It's "just like Tinder, but for taxes." Um... — Richard Rubin (@RichardRubinDC) June 23, 2015 (He's not the only person who was baffled by that one.) Next: do you dabble? Lead to actual PR pitch just received: "We’ve all dabbled w/ the infamous pot brownie but who wants to put up with that bitter aftertaste?" — Chris Rauber (@SFBTchris) June 24, 2015 The American people may now get same-sex married all they want, but one of them is still very insistent on proper capitalization: In an emailed PR pitch to me: "The American People". When did we become a proper noun? — Ben Allen (@BenAllenWITF) June 24, 2015 On the more serious front, here are a couple of learning moments, first via Brittney Helmrich of Business News Daily: Most PR emails I get: "Hi! Loved your article on *this topic* so here's a pitch about *exact same topic* but with my client. Interested?" — Brittney (@brittneyplz) June 22, 2015 This is a thing that happens. A variation on the same from John Fingas of Engadget: PR beef du jour: pitch emails that carry on for weeks, as if the story will be better now that it’s *also* old news. — Jon Fingas (@jonfingas) June 24, 2015 Amy Westervelt of The Wall Street Journal takes that line of thinking to its natural conclusion: Perhaps the biggest PR faux-pas: Publicists who pitch me repeatedly on clients I’ve just covered. #PRfail — amywestervelt (@amywestervelt) June 23, 2015 Another basic DON'T from Quentin Hardy of the New York Times: don't pitch via text. How did this person even get his cell number?! Oh god. A PR person just blind texted me a pitch. I believe my response was not fully supportive. — Quentin Hardy (@qhardy) June 22, 2015 Stephen Shankland of CNET clarifies his pitching preferences so no one makes a similiar mistake in pitching him. Important information! Dear PR people of the world: Once I've accepted your @LinkedIn contact request, note the email address and pitch me that way, not LI. — Stephen Shankland (@stshank) June 22, 2015 This one is a little embarrassing because Patrick Caldwell hasn't written for The American Prospect in nearly two years: Actually, PR pitch person, no part of this paragraph is true pic.twitter.com/JURLSW49Vb — Patrick Caldwell (@patcaldwell) June 23, 2015 On the slightly odder front, Elizabeth Renzetti of Globe and Mail has us wondering what "accents of gold python skin" might look like... PR pitch of the day, or the millennium: 24-karat-gold Segway, with accents of "gold python skin." And I haven't even had my morning LSD yet — Elizabeth Renzetti (@lizrenzetti) June 24, 2015 We're also very curious as to which client was behind this pitch to Alexander Nazaryan of Newsweek: An actual line from a PR pitch: "After launching, an asteroid collided with our transmission sending it completely out of orbit." — Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) June 25, 2015 And while we love stunts as much as the next blog person, we're not sure that we like the idea of "the world's longest human centipede," because ewwwww: PR pitch of the day pic.twitter.com/1WAd1QGRMt — Nick Bond (@bondnickbond) June 24, 2015 Here's a classic in the Did We Really Need to Release This News genre via Liam T.A. Ford of The Chicago Tribune: PR pitches we get: Ducks Unlimited CEO among dignitaries scheduled to speak during duck stamp event — Liam T.A. Ford (@ltaford) June 23, 2015 In other useless facts... I was just helpfully reminded via PR pitch that Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate with a fragrance. (So far!) — Hilary George-Parkin (@hilarygp) June 23, 2015 All this nonsense aside, though, today was a good day. Here's a reminder from Arabelle Sicardi, most recently with BuzzFeed: i already got my first gay marriage pr pitch!!!!! yas capitalist queer kingdom gentrify my love — Arabelle Sicardi (@arabellesicardi) June 26, 2015 Have a great (gay) weekend.

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Pitch, Please: Journalists Sound Off on Media Relations

The week's best responses...to PR pitches.

Patrick Coffee

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