Patrick Smith of Press Gazette (which may be about to go web-only), has finally dipped his toes into the bloggy waters of journalistic blogging with his own blog, Another Drop in the Ocean. And, like the good hack that he is, he's kicked off by being rude about PRs. And who can blame him?
Thanks for the link Adam. I don't think berating our public relations colleagues will be a regular theme - I guess there's just a lot of issues that build up over time when you're cranking the stories out everyday.
"... finally dipped his toes in the bloggy waters..."
I thought he was in up to his neck already?
Now, you see, I meant to add in the words "in a personal capacity" there. But I forgot.
See? I'm subbing myself into error, now. :-)
"Being rude about PRs..and would can blame him"
Well - first off he doesn't actually seem to be being rude about PRs. I just checked. Just as well because it would hardly be original - it sometimes appears that the only things journalists can be bothered to blog about is PRs, but there you go.
Other than that - we get a lot of bitching on various blogs about thoughtless PRs pitching stories to journos. Fair enough. Personally I reckon that a good story can be sold on a press release alone but, whatever...
But, do you really think that conversations 140 characters at a time is easier that just answering a phone?
Also is it really so smart to pick up stories via Twitter - it's hardly being first with the news is it? I mean - everyone can read it - right?
As for no PRs on Twitter - in my experience that is entirely untrue. Also the article has the phrase "if newsdesks had Twitter at their disposal" - hmm sounds more like a dig at journos to me. Would you blame him for that?
Sorry, you got the brunt of my irritation on this one. But you were the one with the dig at PRs.
Um, actually, it was just a joke. A tongue-in-cheek throwaway line.
Maybe I need to use smilies more....