We are back with our pet peeves – March edition. Yes, we know it’s May already. But so much happened. At least our blog wasn’t the only thing delayed, with the Ever Given stuck in the Suez canal and blocking ships carrying everything from raw materials to Amazon parcels and costing billions to the world economy. It was also an intense month for the UK media as Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah had people rethinking the role of the monarchy and what is going on at the Royal Family.
March had it all, and that includes journalists’ pet peeves. Our team keeps tracking record high volumes of them. We’ve been doing this for a while, and we’re amazed at the same issues coming up over and over again. Not enough PRs are reading our blog it seems. Perhaps one day we will tag all tweets ever made with complaints about PRs and produce a more analytical piece to compete with Muck Rack’s and Cision’s industry reports. Until then, we thank journalists for fighting the good fight and helping us do our jobs better.
Have you ever had a deja-vu?
Your story got covered on TechCrunch and you didn’t notice? Shame on you! You got covered on TC, yet still pitched the same story again to another TC journalist, the next day? No comment… 
Remember! Attention to detail is the bread and butter of PR
Incredibly busy inboxes are the norm for journalists. Add that into the equation when planning your outreach – targeted, clear and relevant pitches will help you stand out
It feels like journalists are dealing with more time issues every day. There are less journalists and more news to work on. Again, good PR involves understanding that and being helpful, as opposed to adding to the burden.
Asking nicely works with mum and dad, but it’s probably not enough to get journalists to cover you.
Being lazy can send you right to the journalist’s spam folder – a PR’s biggest nightmare.
Below is one of the worst pitches in history. Getting VC funding is a great opportunity to do storytelling, which should not be reduced to ‘the company is cool’.
If your company’s name is unusual, expect to encounter some issues. Try to make any specificities of your name as explicit as possible beforehand, but if needed stay calm and ride out the turbulence – and you will be able to make your point.
Always put yourself in the shoes of the journalist. Your baby will not get covered for being your baby. Assess and work on your newsworthiness.
Even Jesus waited 3 days, why can’t PRs?
Why would anyone read a pitch on Friday night?
Writing an article takes time. Journalists have little time. Be helpful to journalists.
Throw away your potato camera and get a professional photographer
Understand the difference between digital and print photo needs. Ideally, have a prepared G Drive with all your photography labelled and ready to be picked by the journalist to suit their preference
When it comes to sustainability and diversity, the entire company needs to be on board, from top to bottom. These are serious topics, you don’t want to be gimmicky, especially here.
Never forget your roots
However, as a startup carrying out PR, you will have objectives and often at seed and Series A stage an exclusive arrangement with an outlet like TechCrunch is simply the best way to go about it. That’s the game that we play…
If a friend you haven’t spoken to in 15 years is suddenly a journalist covering your industry, then guess what? You still need a good story.
Sending embargoed information without journalist approval is like leaving a briefcase full of cash unattended, without asking anyone to keep an eye on it!
Play with fire, get burned.
If “looping in” a journalist’s editor does not help, maybe calling their mom might?
We don’t know what this PR firm was sending Patrick, but we’d love to get more detail. Mind-blowing for a man that also covers PR agencies.
Emails from PR reps are one-to-one communications with legitimate interest (well, unless you’re one of those bad PRs). We think what David is referring to here is email marketing / newsletters.
Thank you Hazel, a bit of sunshine for the pet peeves blog.
