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Publicist Asks Rubel to Take Down Post. He Says No (Of Course)

By B.L. Ochman This morning I got a rather frantic phone call from a publicist. Seems her company sent out a press release to some bloggers and Steve Rubel picked up on it immediately.

"Can I run with this?" he emailed her. But she says she didn't respond for half an hour, and by then, he'd published a post about their upcoming $900 report on social media.

The release had no embargo, and the publicist complained that she'd since realized that it contained some incorrect information. People were already disparaging the numbers in the report in comments on Micropersuasion. She says she asked Rubel to take down the post, and he, of course, refused.

"What should we do?" she asked me. "Should we respond on his blog post and say that the material in the release was incorrect?" I said no, because Rubel did nothing wrong. Anyone who reads top blogs knows that we all like to jump on statistics about social media.

"If you want to say that you made a mistake, and explain it," I said, " that makes sense. But it would require a complicated explanation and it might just make you look like your report isn't going to be a credible source about social media. I'd leave it alone, unless you're prepared for a long discussion about whether Rubel is right or wrong." I think he's absolutely correct and am sure most bloggers will agree.

What would you have told her?

Life moves fast these days. Marketers who don't realize that will be run over by the ones who do. And yes, she did ask me not to blog this. C'mon. It's a fairly juicy little tidbit. :>)

Update: Since comments don't run in RSS feeds, please note Steve Rubel's comment on this post:

To this date no one has pointed out any inaccuracies. In fact, the PR contact asked me to change a line about when the report would be available and I did. Was I too quick? Yes. Should the PR contact have said that this was embargoed? For sure. Two wrongs don't make a right and I apologized to the contact.

Categories: B.L. Ochman, Best Practices, Blog ethics, Blogging and Moblogging, Business Communications, Business Ethics, Commentary, Press Release From Hell, Reports, Worst Practices

BL Ochman | Apr 10 06 7:10 | TrackBack (1)

Comments

Unless I'm missing something this is more an issue that would test Steve's responsiblities more than that of the marketer.

He posted based on a release - That's fine.

He then became aware that the release contained inaccurate information. - He needs to post an update either as a new post or update the old one.

The marketer is doing nothing wrong by asking Steve to update his post with the correct info. Mistakes happen and the self-correcting concept is kind of what the blogosphere is driven by. If Steve knowingly is leaving up incorrect information then that's wrong of him. He doesn't need to delete the post, just update it.

Also, if he emailed her and went ahead and blogged it after only half an hour I don't think that's right. That seems to me more like he wanted to be first than be right. A half hour is a pretty short period of time to DEMAND an answer in. Meetings and other things happen.

Steve needs to address why he posted so quickly after asking for confirmation and why he hasn't updated his post with the correct information.

Posted by: Chris Thilk at April 7, 2006 1:18 PM

Unless I'm missing something this is more an issue that would test Steve's responsiblities more than that of the marketer.

He posted based on a release - That's fine.

He then became aware that the release contained inaccurate information. - He needs to post an update either as a new post or update the old one.

Steve needs to address why he posted so quickly after asking for confirmation and why he hasn't updated his post with the correct information.

Posted by: Chris Thilk at April 7, 2006 1:26 PM

To this date no one has pointed out any inaccuracies. In fact, the PR contact asked me to change a line about when the report would be available and I did. Was I too quick? Yes. Should the PR contact have said that this was embargoed? For sure. Two wrongs don't make a right and I apologized to the contact.

Posted by: Steve Rubel at April 7, 2006 4:21 PM

And, therein lies the issue. I rather check and doublecheck before posting, than be first. Steve once posted an email exchange of mine, and then asked for permission after the fact.

Being first means very little anymore, whether it's blogs or media.

Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at April 9, 2006 5:06 PM

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Once You Hit 'Send' It Is Open Season from AListReview
According to B.L. Ochman, a publicist sent a press release to Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion. Logically enough, Steve blogged about it. He even sent an email ahead of time asking "Can I run with this?" but the publicist... [Read More]

Tracked on April 7, 2006 6:31 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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