Journalists and PR

Guy Kawasaki has a post today about the top ten reasons why PR doesn't work. I have heard this from my friends in PR and it's always an interesting conversation because I am coming at it from the other side of the fence.

In response to Guy's post, Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, suggests entrepreneurs go the DIY route: do-it-yourself. Kelman has a point there. As a journalist, I love hearing from entrepreneurs directly. I am always open to pitches from founder/CEOs themselves. I want to hear their story and I want easy access to them.

But DIY PR is not always practical and doesn't always work well for everyone.

I have had some nightmares with inexperienced, young founder-CEOs. In one case, I had a very, very pushy and very aggressive CEO reach out to me personally all the time. He wouldn't take no for an answer. Those high-pressure tactics might work in sales but not in journalism. Eventually I had to start screening out his calls.

Among other problems I have faced is senior executives that blatantly lie-- something that totally destroys their credibility and turns me from a neutral observer into one that is in the future highly skeptical of their moves. Some executives will also not talk to me if I am not directly writing about them or their company, or will not understand how newsrooms and tight deadlines work.

Part of the problem is that not many CEOs are taught how journalism and the media works. MBA schools don't teach aspiring managers media strategies. For instance, one little secret of working with journalists that most PR people seem to understand well is: Talk to the journalist even if the story is not about you or your company. It's all about the relationship and building your brand.

If I think an executive has great insights/perspective and is willing to share those even if the story is not about him or his company, I respect that. But I am also equally happy to work with experienced, professional PR people. Some, I think, do a great job for their companies and I would say are worth whatever they are getting paid.

The DIY approach to PR also works best, I think, for small companies. As a company grows bigger, I think the CEO/senior management's time is better spent trying to manage and build a company than personally reach out to all journalists.

The ideal situation is do your own PR when your are small and use the money that you might pay a PR agency towards building the company.

As you get bigger, get a good PR agency. By that I mean a group that understands what the need of a particular media outlet is, has a great relationship with the company so it can connect a journalist quickly to the right executive at the firm, and offers other specialized services that a company may need.

That combination is not such a rare thing. I work with some very nice and professional PR people everyday and I respect them because they are good at their jobs. Sure, there are not too many of them but they are not as rare as many people would like to believe.

To round this up, here's a post from Brian Solis that says the conversation should be about how to fix the problem. I will keep my take on Brian's suggestions for another post, another day.