Should reporters expose bad pitches & press releases?

Reporters and editors loath off-target PR pitches polluting their email inbox. Public relations professionals seem to get off seeing others in the industry run through the wringer. So I suppose it is of little surprise that we are seeing more online articles, blogs and twitter posts dedicated to publishing and lambasting “good press releases and pitches gone bad.”

The Bad Pitch Blog was one of the first and for a while really the exclusive vehicle for showcasing the sloppiest, worst PR pitches and press releases. That is changing in a big way. Most recently, I came across an effort by San Diego Magazine, which now has a weekly online installment named “Pitches We Had To Reject This Week.” The current installment was, admittedly, replete with pitches that ignored the magazine’s target audience, press releases about nut butter fanatics traveling to Nepal, and the opportunity to speak with experts on all sorts of topics no one cares about.

So do I have a problem with outing bad pitches and releases? No…up to a point. Reading through the San Diego Magazine entries exposes what I find to be maddening aspects of where we are as an industry right now:

1) Press releases blasted out to hundreds of media outlets with zero regard for whether or not the client’s product, service or “expert” fits the demographics, tone or coverage topics of the publication.

2) Horrific writing. A public relations professional who can’t write is kind of like a baseball player who can’t catch. This isn’t some peripheral weakness, but a glaring open wound that really should prohibit the professional from moving forward professionally barring improvement.

3) Pitching ‘experts’ the wrong way. This sunglasses expert may in fact be just that, but so many pitches simply proclaim their client an ‘expert’ without backing it up in any way. News flash – reporters are pitched on hundreds of experts every week, and few qualify as such. If you are going to pitch an expert back it up with hard data (what makes him/her an expert, a few bullet points of expertise so the reporter can determine if the expert offers the type of insights relevant to their audience, etc.)

That said, reporters and editors that want to out bad pitches and releases should focus their ridicule at the source agency or organization behind them, not the specific individual who sent the email. Why? Because what we’ve seen time and time again when an agency or organization gets outed is that they scapegoat some unwitting intern or low level associate. Of course! What a fantastic way to encourage the next generation of PR professionals than to throw interns under the bus to save face. Sure, maybe an intern physically pushed the send button, but give me a break. They are simply carrying out orders from agency higher-ups. I know few agencies that allow interns to, unsupervised, develop client pitches and releases, determine the target media list, and then distribute without nary a peek from supervisors.

For that reason it upsets me when reporters re-post real names of interns and associates as a part of their ‘outing.’ Rather, they should call out the agency leadership if they feel a need to call out anyone. Interns make mistakes, but if you are to believe the crisis communications shtick from agencies we’d be led to believe that interns make all the mistakes. I know better; reporters and editors should too.