A minor PR storm last week centred around a frustrated PR-executive who accidentally pressed “reply all”.
BrandLink Communications pitched a story to a blogger who wasn’t interested and said so in a, shall we say, sassy email. That should have been the end of that. However, the unnamed exec pressed “reply all” to the message and the following landed in blogger Jenny Lawson’s inbox: “What a f***ing b****!” – only without the asterisks. Before long, the world was following the exchange on Lawson’s blog.
While this is unfortunate, it does highlight a bigger problem within our industry. Desperate to generate publicity for their clients, many PR firms relentlessly pursue media to publish their stories and not all media have enough patience left to decline politely.
Tempers fray on both sides. Recently, the editor of a major Dutch trade publication got an earful from the PR-executive of one of the leading companies in his industry for even questioning the rationale behind an embargo on a media release. The editor was hardly to blame, as more and more media disregard embargoes altogether. TechCrunch have even made it their official policy. This puts those media who are willing to play by the rules at a significant disadvantage.
Meanwhile, letting of team in an email is never a good idea, for PR-execs or for journalists. You never know where on the web a hastily written email will end up.
More Schadenfreude here, and tips on how to avoid these embarrassing situations here.
