Gloves off: tensions between the travel writer and the travel PR
November 8, 2007
It is hardly surprising that travel PR companies blacklist the odd travel writer, because frankly some are very odd indeed and many behave atrociously at the first sniff of a business class upgrade and a free Bloody Mary.
However it is also true that occasionally travel writers will blacklist a travel PR, on account of, I don’t know, blind over-enthusiasm for their clients’ products, some kind of a personality disorder or just sheer gormless incompetence.
Two things made me think about this. The first is the furore which ensued last week when Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame published a long list of PR people who have spammed him with inappropriate pitches warning them never to darken his email box again. The fuss even made it to the pages of the New York Times - something the PR companies involved must have loved.
The other was a page on Mark Hodson’s website. Mark has been a fixture on the Sunday Times travel section forever and has met his share of travel PR’s. Frustration caused him to publish ten tips for travel PR’s to note if they wanted his undying love and affection.
More recently, he has allowed the travel PR’s a right of reply (I wish he had disclosed which “well-known” PR’s) with a list of guidelines for travel journalists. It’s ripe with pent-up, thinly-disguised agression/frustration.
When we pitch an idea to you, please just say yes or no, or that you are considering it. We don’t mind if it is a no, it allows us to move on. Silence leaves us nowhere.
On group press trips, some journalists develop a childlike inability to think or do anything for themselves. Try to act like an adult, and don’t forget your passport.
Ouch. This has the makings of a good cat fight. Feel free to join in. It all makes me miss the Bad Hack Blog. So much potential…
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This post made Jo’s Top 5 this week.
[...] A discussion I’ve been following for a while and, in the words of Neil Maclean, what a cat fight it’s becoming. It’s brilliant! I agree totally with Wilson Cleveland. [...]
This post made Jo’s Top 5 this week.
[...] to stir the dust of that journalist versus PR kerfuffle, Stephen Waddington quotes from a new Rainier PR survey which suggests 43% of hacks have [...]