Monday, August 20, 2007

Flacks who yell at reporters


Don't do this. (Image from Sue Johnston)

It has come to my attention that there are flacks who yell at reporters. Indeed, not only do these flacks yell at reporters, they also yell at editors, and publishers. Stop it.

That this is not widely known speaks volumes for the professional standards of the journalists involved. It speaks well of their sense of obligation to their readers that they do not take it out on the clients of bad flacks. Even so, your clients should not be getting good press in spite of the fact that they hired you.

Life is short. Yelling at people is bad. Yelling at journalists is incredibly counter productive and highly unprofessional.

It is just a question of time before one of these flacks tries this with a blogger. Then we will all have a laugh, because bloggers delight in exposing bad flacks.

It is unethical to record a phone conversation without the other participant’s knowledge. It is illegal in Maryland. It is also just a question of time before some flack yells at a blogger, the blogger records the rant, and puts the result in a mp3 file on his blog. When that happens we will all have a refreshing drink of schadenfreude.

5 comments:

Geoff_Livingston said...

Though they may deserve it, Alice is right ;)

hh said...

maybe that's the type of communications they specialise in :-)

Anonymous said...

Do publicists of celebrities have to follow these rules. too? Isn't there some sort of exemption for exception people in exceptional circumstances?!?

Alice said...

there's that :)

Alice said...

Stalkers, er, celebrity reporters maybe in a separate category.