5/2/10 Update read an overview of the campaign and the outcomes of the debate here and how it is being taken forward here.
2/2/10 Update: This excellent article from 1999, “The Care and Feeding of the Press“, was cited on FIR#522 last night by Shel Holtz and is well worth a read. It makes a number of similar points in connection with journalists specifically (as opposed to bloggers which our list is also intended to cover), but in a more jocular style.
28/1/10 Update : the conversation has moved on. Read our FAQs about the Bill of Rights here and the Animation here. Read the debate a PR Week UK and our response regarding some of the language used and how the campaign could be moved forward more productively based on feedback.
The following are rights that we believe have been demanded by journalists and bloggers as to how they should be treated and approached by the PR community and related service providers. These rights are for discussion as a practical contract between the two communities.
Right 1 – Permission required
Press releases should only be sent to Recipients who have given express or implied permission. Implied permission meaning the recipient has stated publicly that they are happy to receive press releases.
Right 2 – Timely unsubscribe
Should a Recipient be added to a distribution list either voluntarily or involuntarily he or she has the right to be removed from that list in a timely manner if they request it.
Right 3 – Don’t rely on media lists exclusively
The PR person should not wholly rely on purchased media lists to ensure accurate targeting.
Right 4 – Read publication first
Before any correspondence is entered into, the PR person will have first researched the Recipient’s subject focus and read the publication or articles they write or publish to ensure that the content is relevant.
Right 5 – Categorise interests in detail
The Recipient has the right to expect that PR people will categorise their interests in detail and not label them under a vague description such as ‘technology’.
Right 6 – Types of release
A Recipient has the right to receive press releases about ‘types’ of stories that they are likely to be interested in and not announcements of any kind just because of an industry categorisation.
Right 7 – Telephone chasing
After receiving a press release the Recipient should not expect a follow up call from the sender just to check the email was received. Acts of such kind only waste time and have no bearing on whether a press release is used for a news story.
Right 8 – Succinct headlines
A Recipient has the right to receive press releases with succinctly written headlines so a decision of interest can be made quickly.
Right 9 – Use clear format
A Recipient has the right to receive press release emails that have been formatted to highlight the key information quickly to the reader, such as a summary of the story, who it is about, contact details and links to supporting information.
Right 10 – No attachments
A Recipient has the right not to receive any press release or related content as an attachment to the corresponding email.
[...] PR industry. It would be great to see more PR agencies get behind the initiative and sign-up to its Bill of Rights. Posted in Media, PR Tags: Inconvenient PR Truth, Journalist, Mark Borkowski, News release, PR [...]
Fully support the sentiment of this. Practically (eg point 1, are all media list houses going to check that every one of their thousands of listed contacts are happy to receive info?), is it realistic? Probably not.
However, anything which supports and promotes good practice in the industry, and which improves relationships with the media, is to be applauded.
Adrian
Umpf
This is genuinely funny.
Lovely use of irony, which flows almost invisibly throughout.
Well done!
[...] information and feedback to database suppliers is a really practical action that could be added to the code that Realwire has proposed as a start point, replacing some of the less practical [...]
[...] The writing of this post was accelerated by today’s launch of An Inconvenient PR Truth, a marketing campaign from RealWire with its own clever take on the PR spam situation. It’s easy on the eyes, and cleverly tied in with RealWire’s colours and even comes with its own journalists’ Bill of Rights [...]
There’s a lot here that makes sense, and that I agree with, but I can’t help feeling that the writers of this bill perhaps have a slightly over-inflated sense of self-importance.
I spent many years as a journo before switching to the ‘Dark Side’ so I understand the complaints as well as anyone. Certainly, poorly targeted pitches and totally irrelevant phone calls did annoy me, and there’s no excuse for complete irrelevance (i.e. a PR for a new range of washing machines being sent to What Car? Magazine). The latter is the real issue, and perhaps more the fault of agencies, which (in my experience) were usually the source of poor pitches, due mainly to a lack of understanding about the publication / market.
Nevertheless, there’s something about the tone of this that grates, and I think it’s the feeling [amongst some] that journos are a superior form of life and PRs are pond scum. Really guys, is it such a hardship to look at an email? If it is completely irrelevant, why not just reply and politely tell them to remove you from their list? You really aren’t so busy and important that you can’t do that. You really aren’t. It won’t work for all, perhaps, but it may well work for many.
Being more targeted and informed is certainly a worthy goal for PRs, and it is important to understand the publications that are on your lists, as much as possible. But it is not practical to go through every single name on a list and selectively add or remove according to the content of the PR. And how would you know if the recipient would be interested or not, anyway (assuming you’re already in the ball park – i.e. not washing machines to a car mag)? Your goal is to get coverage, so if there is a chance of it being of interest then of course you’d send it.
And, no, you can’t ask everyone (possibly 100s, worldwide) whether they are interested in it or not. It takes a few seconds to scan through an emailed PR – it that really such a hardship? Honestly guys, get over yourselves!
PR and journos need each other, and communication is the key. Don’t just spam an email or PR because it has annoyed you. Reach out and explain why. You then won’t [shouldn’t] get a repeat, and perhaps it will help improve the situation. It won’t 100% fix the situation, but it has to be better than creating a list of demands. It has to be a two way thing, surely?
Though it may appear otherwise, I do support this (or at least what it is trying to achieve), though I think that [some] journos should step down off their high horses first.
Anon (for fear of a lynching)
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by markpinsent: The Inconvenient PR Truth: http://inconvenientprtruth.com/bill-of-rights/ Sign up to its Bill of Rights. Or at least read them….
What load of self important crap. I assume you are annoyed with the press releases you recieve because they’re targetted at people that have a proper journalists job where you day is occupied with journalism rather the spending your VERY IMPORTANT time creating a website full of this rubbish.
A bill of rights for journalists? Are you in some way comparing your ‘plight’ with people that are subject to discrimination or victimisation through hatred?
Grow up, or rather no, lets keep this up and maybe when you finish your A-levels you can use it for your journalism course at Cardif.
I support the idea of the Bill 100%. If our industry wants to be seen in a more professional light then it is about time we started acting like it. Too many press release factories out there giving us a bad name.
But I’d like to see the journalists who support this agreeing to show a little common courtesy when they pick up the phone. I’m not talking about the ‘did you get my press release’ call, I mean the original pitch from a PR who has done their homework and wants to see if the journalist is interested in a story before ’spamming’ them with it.
A few journalists are unnecessarily rude without cause and basic good manners cost nothing – at least that’s what my mother told me.
One other thing for journalists to bear in mind. When they do get those dreaded ‘did you get my press release calls’ they should try to remember that in all likelihood they are being contacted by a very junior person who has been handed a list of phone numbers and told to do the dirty work of lazy senior PR’s who have never learned the job properly themselves. Berating these people to the point of tears is not a badge of honour!
In fact, if you take just a moment to explain to them why it’s not necessary for them to make this call, then they’ll know for the future. Alternatively, ask to speak to their account director and let them have it with both barrels for encouraging such sloppy media relations.
Why do we need a bill of rights? Good PRs will adhere to these, and other, rules of engagement, and will reap the rewards accordingly. Those with a lesser understanding of how to engage with journalists and bloggers will miss out. That’s the penance.
If journalists are ‘demanding’ this, what about a code of conduct for their treatment of PRs? We’re not all the same. We don’t all telephone after every press release we send. We don’t all bang out any old crap in the hope that something sticks. Yet ‘journalists’ collectively ignore phone calls and emails (even when the pitch is spot on and highly relevant), and can give little or no feedback to the ideas and content we generate and offer to hand over on a plate. But if it’s something they want, they’ll happily be spoon fed.
PRs and journalists (and to a less extent, bloggers) rely on a close working relationship. You scratch our back; we’ll scratch yours as it were. And carrying on that theme, perhaps the best way to educate on what’s acceptable and what’s not is to train us, like you’d train a dog. Reward the good behaviour, ignore the bad.
The imagined overblown reaction to a presumptuous PR suggesting journalist behaviour is in need of moderation by a bill of rights is equal in measure to the stupidity of this, what can only be described as, hate campaign. The inconvenient (or do I mean convenient) truth is that PRs and journalists form part of a wider industry, a communications microcosm. And even if PRs are the algae at the bottom of the evolutionary pool, as nature has taught us, you don’t kill off the foundation of the food chain.
[...] also been the target of criticism. It stands accused of opportunism and dramatising the issue, yet much of the content is collated, or crowdsourced to use digital parlance, from articles a… where PR spam has been debated over the past two to three [...]
Most PRO’s are very concious of targeting the right people, of course that’s the whole point of their job isn’t it? It takes time to amend and re-amend media lists, but it is an important issue for them as much as the Journalists.
There really isn’t any need for a ‘Bill of Rights’. It only adds to the unnecessary feud between the two professions, who do rely on each other to function in this day and age.
It’s all rather childish if you ask me.
This is a misguided concept and I can’t help thinking that the creators were actually just trying to have a laugh.
On a serious note, it is offensive to use the term Bill of Rights so flippantly. To many people around the world who don’t benefit from the democratic right to vote, a free press and access to information and education, the very idea that a few journalists believe they are so hard done by would seem ridiculous and insulting.
On a more light-hearted note, the more experienced and respected PR professionals do know how and when to target their ideas to the right journalists. If a journalist isn’t happy about the mehtod of approach or the content of the pitch, then they owe it to themselves to let the PR know in order to avoid the situation happening again and perhaps developing the relationship into something that is mutually beneficial.
After all, both sides are in the communications business and they don’t call it media relations for nothing!
I do believe journalists are essential in helping to inform and educate target audiences. But I also believe that the role of the PR is even more valuable to journalists now that it has ever been by providing journalists with access to the people and information which can help them achieve
this.
Now why do feel like I’ve just wasted 10 minutes?
I suppose we ought to acknowledge the general motivation behind this, assuming that is to improve ther current situation, rather than promote Realwire!
But I can’t help feeling that this campaign is berating the wrong people. PR firms only get away with crap work because their clients allow it, albeit some times unwittingly.
Let’s see this campaign redirected towards all those who hire and pay for PR people – both in-house and agency. Then we might see some improvements in working practices – and ultimately more harmonious relations between the PR and media worlds.
[...] с отношението на PR специалистите към тях. Сред десетте права са желанието ресорът на журналиста да е точно [...]
[...] Ще споменем още, че инициаторите на кампанията предлагат своите десет „заповеди” за общуването на ПР специалистите с медии и блогъри. А първата от тях гласи „При дадено разрешение“. Казано с повече думи – прессъонбщенията трябва да се изпращат само до тези, които са дали предварително съгласие за това. Източник : http://inconvenientprtruth.com/bill-of-rights [...]
[...] news releases to journalists who are unlikely to write a story. The solution? An American-style “Bill of Rights” — 10 tips to approaching reporters and bloggers. (e.g. be targeted and knowledgeable and no [...]
this is probably too preachy to really get anywhere. but it is still a breath of fresh air to see the “telephone chasing” acknowledged for the pointless waste of time that it is. there’s no faster way to get me hitting the delete button.
[...] most interesting to me is the suggestion that we need a ‘bill of rights’ to govern our actions and ensure best practice in the way we communicate with journalists and [...]
Yea right and I promise to abide by this bill as long as journalists promise to get the story right and stop calling me up asking stupid questions.
As someone who had to deal with irrelevant press releases on a day-to-day basis at my local newspaper, I can say it is frustrating to be sent things that are in no way relevant. But conversely, as someone studying PR and slowly making my way into the industry, this seems to push some sense of self-importance to the limit.
Journalism and PR need one another, it’s an undeniable fact. Wasn’t it Peter Wilby who said “PR, far more than journalism, shapes the news agenda”. I’m not trying to suggest that PR is merely a tool for manipulation, but in taking such a hard line, aren’t you risking alienating yourselves from those whom you need? And who need you?
The main problem I have with the “Bill of Rights” is that it reduces the entire PR practice down to the act of press release distribution, which in my experience is – thankfully – slowly dying a death in favour of promoting ideas and exclusive stories. The latter tactics can only be executed successfully through one to one conversations after having carried out extensive research on the issue and the target publication. In that sense these tactics inherently mitigate the sort of mindless bad behaviour that press releases, by their very nature, entertain – not just on the part of PR people, but clients and journalists as well. So to summarise I believe we must be brave enough to counsel our clients against relying on the press release as a tool for achieving most PR objectives. I think that my good colleagues is the more Inconvenient Truth.
[...] envoi d’une quantité colossale d’informations polluantes pose l’urgence d’une charte établissant des relations respectueuses et équilibrées entre les émetteurs et leurs [...]
Like a growing number of journalists and bloggers, I have a page on my site telling journalists and marketers “How to Pitch Me”. Unfortunately, few marketers or p.r. people seem to read it, especially if they are relaying on media lists obtained from third parties.
Media directories and list brokers could do both their clients and the targets of their pitches a favor by recognizing “How to Pitch Me” pages as a mutually beneficial best practice, and by including a dedicated (optional) field in their databases for a “How to Pitch me” URL distinct from, and in addition to, the general URL of the blog itself. (It would also be mutually beneficial, although less critical, to have a dedicated optional field for the URL of a disclosure and/or disclaimer page, to include such things as the policy for accepting freebies and the sponsorship and financial disclosures required in the USA by the FTC guidelines.)
Media directories and list brokers could also include some of the principles in this bill of rights as conditions of their contracts with their customers. In particular, they could require that purchasers of their lists (1) identify the source of the list in all messages sent to addresses on the list, (2) include a valid reply address and opt-out link in all such messages, (3) delete listings on request of the data subject or if notified by the directory or list broker that the address should be removed, and (4) not contact a journalist or blogger supplying a “How to Pitch Me” URL without first reading that page and complying with its terms.
It’s the media directories and list brokers who really have the greatest power to set the norms and, to some degree, to enforce best practices through the terms of their contracts and their willingness to actually enforce complinace with those terms by their customers.
Aaaah Edward Hasbrouck.. a minor journalist of no import who actually cares about this crap. Get back to being a practical nomad, get used to the spam that comes with having an email address and being a journo and grow up. None of this bollocks matters and the fact that we spend time musing on this rubbish should force us into the streets to shoot our selves. Naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing, naval gazing.
oh good lord, my moral high ground undone by an inability to spell… whilst its an honourable thing to stare at sailors.. navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing, navel gazing.
Ner.
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