Oh, those double standards!
By Xavier Prabhu on Feb 13, 2008 in Indian PR industry
Thanks Madhuri for the trigger. Here are my two cents on the open double standards practiced by some media practitioners :
- We send a pitch document to a journalist and later when you follow-up there will be responses like have not seen the mail, am busy, call me tomorrow, the pitch is not interesting etc. Instead of being frustrated just make the client person call and hey presto in a couple of days, not just the elusive meeting, even the elusive article is all there, in full glory, three columns and nicely positioned
- Say you are a PR person and there is this jaded response; change the very next day to being a Corporate Communication whatever and watch the changed reaction; so what if you are doing the same thing
- You fix a meeting and then try to reschedule it, be prepared to face a barrage that has you worried about the future impact on stories of other clients of yours; turn 360”; the journo confirmed a meeting and has not turned up at the appointed time despite a SMS reminder sent in the morning; you call after making a marathon effort to keep the client in good humor and there is a casual response – “Oh I forgot, an important assignment came up, etc.”; try raising your voice or even suggesting that it is a two way street;
- There is a small company which approaches you and says he wants a exclusive in a national channel and a big story in a leading English daily; you take the effort to educate him on how news works and how as a small company to get such coverage is primarily possible through trend stories; some of them simply say in your face well I don’t think so and very soon you will find this big feature splashed across the very same daily and the potential client sort of winking at you saying what kind of a PR firm/person are you?
Here are the thumb rules I have glened:
- News is sometimes or many a time not news just because a PR person is pitching it
- It is your job to be careful and even 200% sure and to expect the least of this in return
- Grin and bear it all; to give it back is professional hara-kiri
Promise not to rant anymore on this topic till cows come home.
Have exercised necessary constraint and have only quoted instances shared by the team I work with while doing their job.
(Xavier Prabhu owns and runs a fast growing integrated communications firm called PRHUB. He can be reached at Xavier@prhub.com)
Popularity: 4% [?]
On Feb 14, 2008, Bella said:
Ohhh…. So true. This all has happened with me, when I was working with a small PR agency, a year back. But since I have joined this BIGIIE, same set of journalists call me, they don’t mind me telling them give me couple of days for this. While earlier they could not wait for two minutes. Strange!
What I hate….
•I hate those journalists who call me say if you can’t get me this information in 5 minutes I shall call some one else (competition). Oh…who are you fooling; if you really had to call ‘someone else’ you would not have called me in the first place. :-X
• I hate those TV journalists who ask me to fix appointment, and when I do, they call back and say with that unapologetic face.. ohh I have got someone else for that programme. It doesn’t end here despite, me, telling them,’ boss I am answerable to a gentleman who canceled all his meeting to be on your show’; they repeat same mistake again and again and again….. I am sure they get some sort of sadistic pleasure from such mess up. Nevertheless, now I know that journalist very well, so I never confirm to my client but just ask the client if he could do such a programme and if the time suites him and get back to my client once the journalist confirms again to me.
•I hate those journalists who call me two weeks after the interview and tell me.’ I have lost my notes. May I send a questionnaire to the MD again’? …ARE YOU MAD ;-O what kind of a journalist are you, if you had to misplace the notes, what were you waiting for?? Couldn’t you tell me earlier??
•I hate those journalists, who during the interview ask the client, where he would like to see his interview which column which page…. How big….. MY GOD….that’s embarrassing. If you really have to ask some one…..ASK ME!
•I hate those journalists who put down the phone on my face without even hearing me out. CURSE YOU!
•I hate those journalists who call me and say’ ‘I have to file a story give me something…oh no… Not that one I have no time to research’. If I am going to do everything what the hell you publication is paying you for??
Well, the list is long I will write more on it some other day.
And yes there are plenty of thing I hate about clients’ marketing, corp comm. teams; which I will share some other time. Because if I do not get back to my work in another one minute I will have tons of things to write on “ what I hate about my boss” as well. 
On Feb 14, 2008, Tushar said:
Hey Xavier!! Are there any standards?!!
The power corrupts and how!
On Feb 14, 2008, Shashank Jaitely said:
Hey, how can anyone start contributing on this blog? I could not find any link here which says, “to contribute to this blog…”.
This is an amazing blog and would love to feed in. Thanks
On Feb 18, 2008, Xavier said:
Hi Tushar,
Power does corrupt. But exceptional professionals are known to rise about it or not be affected by it. Let us keep the candle of hope burning that PR has a few or tons of them.