Public relations ballyhoo

As a journalist with a keen and intense specialization on all things gadget-related, I have constant communication with people who call public relations their life’s calling (although to be honest most of them are just Journalism graduates who got sick of the poor pay). In any case, I like to think I have a healthy relationship with the PR people. I call them up to get information, they send me products to review, they get publicity (even if it’s bad), I send them the stuff back, and everyone’s all hunky dory in happy gadget wonder fairy land. However, I also have a lot of random PR people emailing me press releases and stuff that aren’t remotely related to my field, which I tend to skip by, but sometimes I humor them and I read them and sometimes I’m even so nice as to reply to them. It depends.

But sometimes.. just sometimes.. I come across a PR email that’s so inane, and ridiculous, and.. well.. just DUMB, that I can’t believe someone actually took their time to write it. Here’s one that I received recently, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide if I’m just being oversensitive here:

Dear Nicole,

[Insert introduction of said person plus the company he or she represents. It is a public relations and media firm specializing in technology. They have lots of cool clients.]

You have been in our database for some time now, listed as a writer for the CNET.com. That said, and to be entirely honest, we are not aware of your areas of interest. (Emphasis mine).

In better streamlining our communications with you, it would be great to understand your interest areas. That way we will ensure our communications with you are both targeted and appropriate.

Thanks for your help,
[Insert name of PR person]

So wait. They have me in their database (How?) and then they email me to ask me my areas of interest… Wow. How lazy can they be? Is this standard practice, to email journalists to ask them what their “areas of interests” are? Haven’t they ever heard of, oh I don’t know, web search? Maybe they could bother going to CNET.com and look for my name? Maybe they shouldn’t just chuck any ol journalists’ name into their “database” without appropriate information? What is this bullshit?

Well kudos to you, public relations person, for being honest. For that, I salute you. But.. boy, next time, do a little research instead of sending off the email, huh?

PS. Also, “the” CNET.com? That is totally a form letter. Boy they ARE lazy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 12:25 am and is filed under Rants & Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.