Valley PR Blog

Spam, spam and more spam

By Len Gutman on December 18th, 2008 In Pitching

Have you ever tried to pitch bloggers? Uh, you might want to read this first. TechCrunch not only went off on embargoes today, they went off on Lois Whitman. Who is Lois Whitman? I’d guess a soon-to-be former PR person!

I don’t feel sorry for Lois. She had it coming. It’s hard enough for PR folks to break through to journalists and bloggers through relationships and other appropriate means, but when someone like this unabashedly spams journalists and bloggers it makes all of our jobs harder. Shame on you Lois.

Also, it’s important to remember that the bloggers we so desperately want to connect with ARE bloggers we want to connect with because they have large audiences. That means they can publicly skewer you on a grand stage if they want. They are not beholden to any so-called journalistic standards and can pretty much do what they want. And that’s fine. It’s the nature of blogging and if you want to play the game you should understand the rules first. It just means you don’t want to get on their bad side. Be respectful if you want coverage and if you don’t get it don’t go off on them. You wouldn’t do that to a reporter at The New York Times. Really, Lois opened herself up to Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington by being rude. There’s no need for that.

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