PR Opt-Out

SOME PR PERSON just sent us a questionnaire asking, How do you wish to be contacted by us?

Thanks for asking, but we don’t want to be contacted at all.

That’s right-don’t bother us. We’ll call you if we want anything.

We can’t take it anymore.

Our phone starts ringing with calls from flacks at 9 a.m. sharp most days, and doesn’t stop until well after 6 at night. Most of the calls are about dated software launches and janitorial appointments.

Worse yet, these folks often start by asking us questions, as in: Did you get the information we sent you two weeks ago?

Duh, what information?

A press release on…

Say no more. Unless it’s on the level of Acxiom buying Direct Media, there’s no way we can remember the content of all 550 press releases we get each week. And no, we don’t have time to look it up and see if we ran it.

Then there’s this one: Would you like us to visit and give you an accounting software demonstration?

Hell, no. What good would a two-hour software demo do for a computer illiterate who can barely open Microsoft Word?

Is there someone else on your staff you can recommend?

Why don’t you recommend somebody? You’ve probably already called every name on our masthead. (We’d just love to say this someday.)

Finally, there’s this gem: Would you like an opportunity to meet Mr. So-and-So? Usually it turns out that we’ve known Mr. So-and-So for 15 years, and t hat he writes a column for us.

None of this would bother us-as much-if these people were giving us clear and relevant information. But mostly, all we get is drivel.

When we started in this trade, most PR people were ex-reporters who had decided at long last they wanted to earn a living wage. Though short on strategy in the Edward Bernays sense (they were bad at spreading the Big Lie), they at least knew how to write clearly. It was unheard of for press releases written by those old pros to be retracted because of factual errors, the way so many are these days.

And when they called, they knew how to speak the reporters’ language.

Yes, we know, most PR people are wage slaves like us, facing pressures we can’t even imagine. (Maybe that’s why they sound so desperate-like sales reps in a fraudulent telemarketing operation.) There are a handful who are first-rate. But we’ve got a job to do too, and these endless calls keep us from doing it.

So we have an answer: Don’t call-send an e-mail. We’ll read it-promise.