Pitch, Please: Journalists Sound Off on Media Relations

Hello and happy Friday again, readers. After a week off due to that early summer vacation bug, we are back with more journalists' responses to PR pitches. First, Senior Editor Jeff Dengate of Men's Journal has a hashtag to describe one pitch he received, which got the gender of his publication (and everything else about) it completely wrong: Lazy PR pitches cont'd. This, to me at Men's Journal: "Attention moms of stinky sporty boys." #sprayAndPrayPR — Jeff Dengate (@dengaterade) June 4, 2015 Here's the first: Got a PR pitch at 2:56 on a Thursday that started by asking if my "week is off to a good start?" It was. But it's ending pretty poorly. — Jeff Dengate (@dengaterade) June 4, 2015 Other pitchers slipped up on more basics, like this one via producer SHAWN Reynolds: PR pitch: "Dear Sean" /delete — Shawn Reynolds (@ShawnRTV6) May 31, 2015 For the record, that's an easy mistake to make--we misspelled our own Shawn Paul Wood's name more than once. But confusing a tech journalist for a sports journalist? Winner of this week's irrelevant PR pitch: Colby Berthume of RockVentures for pitching a fireside chat with the owners of two sports teams. — Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) June 5, 2015 Kim Zetter of Wired explains that last one: To PR people, when you personalize your pitch to me by name it makes me think you actually know what I cover. If only that were true. — Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) June 5, 2015 Oh, and did you hear that things are kind of dry in California? PR pitch of the day: 'Hi- Hope you are staying dry!' Ummm wrong state? #CAdrought — Kristen Rae Lepore (@KristenLepore) June 2, 2015 In other basic facts news, BuzzFeed's Adolfo Flores is not a girl--and he doesn't have curly hair either: PR pitch this morning. How come no one told me I had curly hair? pic.twitter.com/9YNbqOR0Br — Adolfo Flores (@aflores) June 4, 2015 It's true that Harry McCracken of Fast Company has covered projects that started on Kickstarter in the past. That doesn't make this statement any less accurate: The 10 least welcome words in PR pitches: "Since you have written about Kickstarter projects in the past..." — Harry McCracken (@harrymccracken) June 4, 2015 Here's one from Nancy Shute of NPR that we almost don't believe: 4:12pm EDT: First health-related Caitlyn Jenner PR pitch. — Nancy Shute (@nancyshute) June 1, 2015 Did it really take that long? We don't even want to know how many Jenner-related pitches she's received since then. We assume the answer is "way too many," since someone pitched a Jenner story to the very outlet that broke the Jenner story! Tone deaf PR pitch of the day: "I wated to see if you were covering the Caitlyn Jennfer story" — Katherine Goldstein (@KGeee) June 2, 2015 Shute probably didn't feel guilty for passing on that story...and Owen Williams of The Next Web tells us that the guilt trip pitch won't work anyway: pr pitches as guilt trips = nope — Owen Williams (@ow) June 3, 2015 On the Completely Insane tip, here's one from Financial Times Asia Editor Louise Lucas: PR pitch of the day: "Hi, Touching base to see if you have any plans to cover the upcoming annual Yulin dog meat festival on June 22" — Louise Lucas (@louiseflucas) June 4, 2015 As owners of the world's greatest dog (yes she IS!), we find that image way too disturbing...so we'll cheat a little on this piece of insanity via Danielle Tcholakian of DNA Info: most literally insane PR pitch in history pic.twitter.com/Zn02E4w2Ep — Danielle Tcholakian (@danielleiat) May 27, 2015 Wow. Still trying to wrap our heads around that one. (She covers New York City politics, by the way.) Next. We choose to believe that this joke from HuffPo's Maxwell Strachan is real: sad day. just got a PR pitch… from my mom. — Maxwell Strachan (@maxwellstrachan) June 2, 2015 It happens to the best of us. Next, is "Tinder for X" the new "Uber for X?" Apparently so! PR pitch arrives about "the Tinder of equity crowdfunding" - what does that even mean?! #EnoughAlready — Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) June 3, 2015 Finally, in More Tinder News, a maybe-real proposed solution to the too-many-pitches problem: just swipe left! So. I just got pitched on an app that's essentially Tinder for reporters: swipe left/right on PR pitches #partylikeajournalist #leftleftleft — Alison Bauter (@AlisonBauterMBJ) June 3, 2015 We don't think that will come to pass, so in the meantime we will continue to report on journalists reporting on the good, bad, and ridiculous pitches they receive.

Social Pro Daily

Pitch, Please: Journalists Sound Off on Media Relations

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

Patrick Coffee

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Patrick Coffee