I had an interesting interaction with a nameless PR guy last week. He runs a matching service that links industry experts with journalists looking for quotes. I signed up and the emails came thick and fast- 2-3/day, 5 days week. Of the hundreds of opportunities over three weeks, only one was suitable for me (on how an MBA helps a non-traditional career) and I never heard back from them. So I unsubscribed. The exit form asked me why I was leaving, and I cited low quality of opportunities. You know, things like the Fort Wayne New Sentinel, Water Efficiency Monthly, Steamboat Springs Pilot & Today.
The PR guy wrote me back immediately. “The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the Today Show are low quality sources? Wow… OK then..” I HATE being spun like this. Just because you say something is X, doesn’t make it so. I can understand having pride in your work, but it ticked me off to have him come back at me with such BS. We had a (heated) email exchange, and he had to have the last word: “It’s cool - PR isn’t for everyone”. True enough. I think the reason I couldn’t do (this kind of) PR is because I really believe in the difference between fact and fiction. More explictly, I think it’s important to be honest to yourself and others about what you personally believe. I think this is why I had a problem with advertising when that was the dominant part of my work. I have a really hard time feeling good about telling people a product is great when I know it’s crap, or, more often, when I know I wouldn’t explictly recommend it to a friend over some other, better, product.
