What's your worst experience with a reporter?

One of the best sites on the Internet for media gossip is Poynter.org, which is run by the Poynter Institute—a school for journalists. (Jim Romenesko’s MediaNews column is particularly good.) But the Poynter site includes a column called PR Beefs, which details reporters’ complaints about unprofessional or simply unresponsive public relations professionals. Although it hasn’t been updated in a while, it’s still a pretty lengthy whine-fest, containing all the standard journalistic grumblings about those people without whom they could not do their jobs.

Of course it’s easy to use anecdotes that by definition represent the worst practices in a particular industry, and use them to paint a negative portrait of that industry. So we figure it’s about time to turn the tables.

E-mail us at pholmes@holmesreport.com and tell us the stupidest question you were ever asked by a reporter, the dumbest thing that ever appeared in print about your company, the most unprofessional conduct by a journalist. There's no reason this discussion should be so one-sided.

(Reporters are an unusually sensitive and thin-skinned bunch. For some of their responses to this column, see below).

"So how much venture capital did your company receive this year?" This question came after I repeatedly told a reporter that the company I represent is a $100 million dollar company that is publically traded on the NASDAQ.

Sean

In April, I pitched a trend story to a senior writer at a top-tier technology publication. The pitch was: a trend story focusing on the fact that most of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip used our client's software to ensure their servers never crashed and the money kept rolling in 24 hours a day.

We'd heard this writer could be difficult, but he was fairly friendly over the phone and during briefing encounters at trade shows. The writer and his editor agreed to the story I pitched and we delivered everything we promised-the directors of information technology from three casinos, an analyst to be quoted, and the CEO of our client company. We obtained a detailed schedule of availability from the writer and, upon his request, set up all of these interviews quickly around his schedule.

The writer rescheduled each interview several times, each time claiming that he "never said he was available at those times."
During the writing and editing process, he asked for our help with obtaining detailed business information from each casino and we complied happily.

In addition, as a courtesy we contacted him as the process dragged on because we planned to issue a release covering the client's specific and valuable relationship with The Venetian, one of the casinos included in his story. The writer got very angry that we would even consider issuing the release while his story was still in development and threatened to pull his story, so we agreed to postpone the release until after his story ran.

When the story eventually ran it was not about the software but about the casinos' use of the specific server for which the software was developed. One sentence toward the end of the story mentioned that all of the casinos used our client's software to protect their server and the information within.

Needless to say, the client and the public relations team were extremely dismayed. Not only was the reporter's unprofessional behavior painful to deal with-frequently abusive with his language, generally patronizing, always confrontational and defensive-but it turned out all of our work and all of our client's money was to help him develop his own story that was not to benefit our client nearly to the extent he suggested.

We understand that stories change during development and nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the media, but during our numerous conversations the writer never notified us of any changes, even after he apparently became aware of the shift in focus.

It appears he used us, the people he frequently called "pesky, pushy public relations people," to develop his own story and showed no appreciation of any kind. No one on my team, nor anyone associated with our client's public relations efforts, will ever work with this reporter again.

Rebecca
Los Angeles

Several years ago, I was working in Chicago and pitching a story to a senior-level network news producer in New York about an event in Detroit. After describing the event, detailing how newsworthy it was and telling him about the visuals that could be provided, he said he'd "look at the pictures," but he wanted to double check the time. He wanted to know why Detroit was on the same time as New York. I said something intelligent like "Huh?" and he said he was asking because "Detroit is west of Chicago, isn't it?"

The pictures did make the evening newscast which was great. But I was left wondering if this guy can't find Detroit, what about some of the more distant places he was expected to cover.

David
California

About a 18 months ago, we were representing an emerging Internet portal that was largely unremarkable but for the fact that its CEO could have been the next James Bond: smart, handsome, intelligent and very wealthy. After much pitching of the top-tier media we set him up with a reporter from Businessweek.com, a young woman we had worked with a number of times on similar stories. The CEO, reporter and agency account supervisor would meet for a drink at a quite bistro downtown where the story of the company could be laid out in all of its glory. Everything was looking good until....

...four martini's later, the reporter was completely trashed and asking more questions about the CEO's personal life than about his company. She made it clear that she was willing to continue the interview at his apartment. If it wasn't for the intervention of our account supervisor, things could have been much worse. Later that night, the CEO left me
one of the more memorable voice mails of my career. But things were just getting started.

Most of the reporter's "follow up" phone calls to the CEO's office were intercepted by the marketing department and our account team, but it was soon clear that they had nothing to do with a story about the
company. Her frequent inquiries about his whereabouts yielded pay dirt one night about a week later when the CEO's secretary let it slip that he was dining at a popular Park Avenue South eatery. The Businessweek.com reporter charged over to the restaurant like a jealous suitor... and then joined the CEO—and his date—at their table.

Robert
New York

My worst story actually comes from an industry analyst. I was pitching a briefing with the CEO and medical director of a healthcare technology company. Apparently I caught the analyst at a bad time because the first time I called, I had only managed to say hello when the analyst responded, "Brilliant, thank you very much" and hung up on me. I called back, said I was afraid we'd been disconnected, to which he replied, "F#@&-off" and hung up again.

Perhaps, like Marshall McLuhan said, it was the medium, not the message. The email pitch I then sent was more politely received.

Sara,
Atlanta

Reporters Respond

You can't really think that reporters need PR people to do their jobs. Can you?

Dan S.
Cleveland

I laughed out loud when I read your worst experiences web page. People without whom journalists could not do their jobs? Do you really believe the public relations industry plays such a pivotal role in journalism? The truth is, the best stories are told when reporters get around PR and spin. We talk to real people instead of some spokesperson who is removed from the action. We go through piles of records to find the truth. Thanks anyway, but I can get by quite nicely without you.

John Tedesco

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Yeah, boy it would be impossible to do my job if i there weren't p.r. people. i'd sure hate to go straight to a source to get the information i'm looking for. i'd be lost with no one to spin it for me, or obfuscate, or pester me with information i don't need and didn't ask for. all hail p.r.!

Tracy Idell Hamilton

Having been a print journalist at a major metro daily for 25 years and owner of a PR
agency for the last 14 years, I've seen unprofessional behavior on both sides. It's good to air these incidents so we flacks can learn from the experiences of our colleagues to better protect our companies/clients from bad reporters and editors. From the journalists' beefs, we need to be reminded of the sensitivities that newspeople have to our behavior—also
for the benefit of our clients.

But I must take issue with the Holmes statement about Poynter's PR Beefs, "it's still a pretty lengthy whine-fest, containing all the standard journalistic grumblings about those people without whom they could not do their jobs." Maybe I came from a different world of journalism, a world where good PR people were sometimes helpful, but never indispensable. I think that the better people in either profession would feel embarrassed for someone who really thinks the Sun or Gazette would not rise without us. I know I do.

Tom Andrzejewski