Five things wrong with journalists

 12th October 2015    PR Guru 

We were at an awards do the other night supporting our client (and no, there was no champagne, thanks for asking), and we also invited a couple of relevant industry journalists. They certainly didn’t entertain us, that’s for sure. We knew they were not the most interesting people, and they certainly aren’t lookers, so we did our duty and seated ourselves next to them. At least they always turn up late (if at all), so that cuts down some of the pain.

Once they did arrive, they hit the bottle as if they have never had a free drink before in their lives. They then proceeded to become even more obnoxious than usual. As if awards events aren’t tedious enough, without having to hear from journos how crap they think PR people are, and how fantastic they, by implication, are themselves.

Let’s face it, they are only trade journalists. We have to force ourselves to read what they publish, and yet they expect us to treat them as if they are a superior species. The only solace we get is knowing that at least we earn a bit more than them. But not as much as they think. After insulting us for several hours, they had the cheek to mention that they are thinking of moving into PR. We hope they don’t think we would ever take them on!

As journos are so fond of telling us our faults, here’s five faults about them:

1. Many can’t write. As we trawl through their features looking for mentions of our clients (often misquoted and job titles/companies/names wrong) it’s hard to stay awake.
2. We sometimes think many of them can’t read either. They never do any background reading about the industry, plus they don’t seem to know much about their own boring magazine either. Wish we didn’t have to read it too!
3. After telling us they need information exclusively, they then never bother to publish any of it, and by the time they admit it’s never going to run, it is too late to use it anywhere else.
4. They get the facts wrong. Not that it’s ever their fault. It is always the sub-editors who get the blame for inserting dud information.
5. Their rudeness is unbelievable. They tell us where to get off, slam the phone down on us, they don’t bother to turn up to engagements... and yet they then expect us to give them great stories!