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Dear Flacks: If You Spy on Journalists, Keep Your Mouth Shut About It

IABC Cafe reports that flack ridiculousness has reached new heights. A TV show producer received a story pitch from a publicist via email. She wasn't interested and deleted the email.

Ten minutes later, the publicist called, irate, asking "Why did you delete my email? You only read it for two seconds!"

This was true. So how'd the flack know? He was using a program like ReadNotify, that tracks opens in your inbox and MUCH more. Ahnd he was dim enough to let the journalist know he was spying.

Dear PR people: Never make a call like that one. If you use a program like this, have the common decency to keep the information to yourself. And here's a hint for you: journos delete shit they aren't interested in. Doh.

via Alice Marshall

PR, public_relations

Categories: Public Relations, Worst Practices

BL Ochman | Aug 18 05 4:09 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I may not be the hippest PR/Media person around, but this is beyond bad! You NEVER badger a journalist when they aren't interested in your information - heck, not everyone is interested in everything you want them to be. In this case, if he is using the software it should just be to give himself some information for the next pitch like "that didn't work, I'll have to pitch them in a different way next time." Oy!

Posted by: Donna Tocci at August 19, 2005 10:46 AM

I just had the same conversation with three PR people on another group, that you NEVER NEVER NEVER have "return receipts" on in Microsoft Outlook.

I learned that when I was an AAE, when I sent out a few emails to reporters during a product launch, and forgot to turn it off (I had it on for internal emails). Since then, I never have used it for external emails.

Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at August 20, 2005 9:25 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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