Swordplay’s denizens are well versed in the art of PR. It’s what we do, so we should be. But our sometime scribe, Alex Wade, isn’t convinced that everyone in the PR industry is quite so savvy. Here are his Nine Cardinal Sins of PR – commit any one of them at your peril.
1. Egregious English.
Writers and journalists like words. Damn it, some of us even love them. We use them with fidelity and respect. So please don’t send us press releases full of spelling howlers and grammatical infelicities. They just end up in the bin.
2. Phoning when we’ve asked to be emailed.
There are a number of ways in which journalists post requests for information. Many of us, when doing so, request that we’re emailed, not phoned. That way we can marshall our workloads and concentrate on writing. So don’t, unless you know the journalist in question very well, pick up the phone just because you have our phone number in your contacts book. It’s annoying.
3. The “Hi there” mass overture.
Journalists develop specialisms, and we like to feel that our knowledge is valued. So when you send an email to everyone in your database, saying “Hi there”, we feel a little miffed. A tailor-made email might take more time, but at least we’ll read it. Those beginning “Hi there” are deleted.
4. Being Dim.
If we’re writing a story about high street law firms and how they’re coping with the recession, we don’t want to be asked if a leading City firm’s senior partner can contribute. If we’re writing a column for the Times on coastal life, we don’t relish being given statistics on the numbers of people holidaying in the Cotswolds. If we’re covering an arts event, we don’t need information about the forthcoming football season. You get the picture. Always think carefully about the story and pitch your client accordingly. Or not, as the case may be.
5. Not Responding.
Journalists are busy people and so are PRs. But the nature of the relationship means that while it’s OK if we ignore a press release, it’s not OK for a PR to fail to call us back. Always get back to a journalist who’s shown interest in your client, even if the story has moved on elsewhere.
6. Being Pushy.
There’s a thin line between reasonably promoting your client and harassment. One follow up email might be OK but several, all asking if we’ve had a chance to think about your pitch, will only irritate us. Counter-intuitive as it may sound, in PR silence can sometimes be golden.
7. Allowing a journalist to pay for lunch/drinks/dinner/hospitality.
Never, ever, under any circumstances, accept a journalist’s offer to pay. If it’s been made, it’s out of a sense of etiquette, but etiquette also demands that the offer is firmly refused. The journalist who pays for a PR’s lunch is the one who goes away thinking that something didn’t quite add up. He’s also the journalist whose attention moves on elsewhere, quicker than you should have said “Don’t be silly, I insist”.
8. Asking when the piece will be published.
Why do this? We haven’t a clue. We’re writers, mere hired guns toiling for unseen editors and their obscure aims. If you’re desperate, give our paymasters a call and see where you get.
9. Allowing clients to correct copy.
Sometimes, we might send a draft of a piece to you, perhaps because copy approval has been agreed or because we’re keen to avoid libel or any other legal risks. If we do, make sure, at all costs, that your client resists the urge to “improve” our copy. We want factual accuracy checked, or a quote confirmed if our interview has been especially wide-ranging and digressive. We don’t want someone telling us that we can’t write. Even if your client is as gifted as Marcel Proust, remember – we’re the ones writing the story. Any other view means that we’re back to square one – and that’s no good for anybody.
For a certain poet, an unspoiled stretch of seaside was like “the holy hush there is in the land on Christmas morning. The roads fairly empty, the sky almost free of aeroplanes and you begin to hear and see and smell once more”.
But who uttered these lines?
(It’s a Monday, and this is your starter for 10 – and yes, we’re fresh to the metropolis, from a coastal sojourn.)
The following words appeared in a Times article in 2003, about the paper’s recently departed Head of Legal, Alastair Brett. They’ve been doing the rounds in the wake of Brett’s sudden exit last week, though without attribution. Who, we wonder, wrote them? Two suspects present themselves – our own occasional scribe, Alex Wade, and Dominic Carman, son of the late, great George (an old mucker of Brett’s). Or was someone else the author? Whatever: the fact remains that Brett was a fearless, tenacious and excellent newspaper lawyer, a man whose commitment to press freedom coursed through every vein in his body. We don’t know the precise reasons for his departure, but he will be missed.
“[He] is known for his impassioned commitment to press freedom – so impassioned that he has been described as “certifiably insane”. Capable of an intimidatory snarl or two, and prepared to be stubborn, Brett is far from mad. He is erudite, charming (so the ladies say), and not known for sitting on the fence. If his sanity has, tongue firmly in cheek, been questioned, one thing not open to doubt is that Brett epitomises the old school Fleet Street lawyer”.
Pictured: Fleet Street - not the same as it used to be.
A curious observation leaps at us from Roy Greenslade’s piece about whether Conrad Black, shortly to roam the high-class hotels of the world again as a free man, will return to the UK and carry out his threat to sue his biographer, Tom Bower, for libel:
I somehow doubt that he would have the appetite, or the funds, to pursue a libel action, but Black marches to the sound of his own drummer, so he might just do that. Even if he did, my money would still be on Bower winning.
Hang on, Roy – what about suing via a no win, no fee deal? Funds or no funds, a CFA would see Conrad through – though maybe he’ll remember what happened to the last press baron who sued Bower. Anyone for Richard Desmond’s curious dalliance with libel?
Pictured: the kind of place in which Conrad Black may be spotted (if not at the Royal Courts of Justice).
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Πλάτων, Greek philosopher.