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Scattergun PR: Why It’s Rubbish (Usually)

July 30, 2009

Swordplay’s denizens work in PR. We work with journalists on a daily basis and know that bombarding them with irrelevant press releases or pushy follow up calls does no one any favours. But according to our sometime scribe, Alex Wade, there’s an awful lot of bad PR out there. Read on, as he confronts EU agricultural law, e-Recruitment and National Orgasm Day.

It’s a bright, sunny morning. What a relief after the recent deluge. I fire up my laptop and set about writing something. It’s going well and I don’t mind the insistent ‘ping’ of emails wending their way to me. I could close Outlook to avoid the intrusion of email, but I quite like the distraction, stopping writing every 15 minutes or so to see who’s emailed me and about what.

Today, though, I seem to be in receipt of an excess of poorly judged PR. Press releases which bear no relation to one’s fields of expertise are an occupational hazard and there is a very simple way of dealing with them. It involves the ‘delete’ button. But today I’m subject to an onslaught. One man’s spam may be another’s manna but given that I write about coastal matters, the law, sport, travel and art (OK, a wide brief), why am I being exhorted to take an interest in genomic medicine? I will never write about this in a million years, as is also the case for the following, all of which have come my way thanks to Scattergun PR:

1. e-Recruitment in Ireland. I’m sure this is an excellent innovation but it’s not my thing.

2. Modifications to the Subaru WRX. Subarus are great cars but I am not, have never been and am unlikely ever to be a motoring journalist.

3. Exciting news about a Saville Row tailor. Or perhaps it’s a tailor who’s not on Saville Row but should be. But doesn’t want to be, because the rents are too high. As such, he’s happy to ply his trade elsewhere. Or she is. I can’t remember and, truth to tell, I never knew. This press release was instantaneously deleted.

4. EU agricultural law and policy. Yes, I write about the law, but usually with a media slant. Have I ever written about agricultural law? No. Will I ever write about agricultural law? No.

5. National Orgasm Day. An organisation which makes sex toys asks that we all say ‘Yes!’ tomorrow, it being National Orgasm Day. I didn’t know that National Orgasm Day looms, and though this is of course good news I do wonder whether writing about it is quite my thing.

Then again, who knows? Perhaps one of my editors might go for a feature? Maybe I’d better give this one some thought. I retrieve the deleted press release and discover that “If more people said yes to their partner rather than making excuses, we would actually be a more relaxed nation as sex is actually a stress buster and releases endorphins to the brain.” Elsewhere I learn that the recession and women wanting to have it all are “key factors in people’s waning libidos.”

Hmmm. Is there a story here? Can I ignore the lacklustre prose and needless repetition of the word ‘actually’ in favour of pitching a piece on National Orgasm Day?

Er, no. Someone, somewhere will go for this as a story, but I can’t see it in my Times column or as a law piece, or anywhere else for that matter. It only remains to trust that National Orgasm Day is everything it hopes to be – and to read the press releases which are relevant to my work. Talking of which, perhaps I’ll close Outlook after all.

Pictured courtesy of ArtflDodger: a painting of a woman moaning with despair at the idea that anyone would ever legitimise ‘National Orgasm Day’.