What PR People Do That Drives Journalists Away

I left full-time journalism back in 2008, but some things about the profession haven’t changed that much. In reading Cision’s 2021 Global State of the Media report, I came across a list of journalists’ pet peeves that sounded very much like gripes I heard and made a lot back in my newsroom days.

According to the report, based on a survey of more than 2,700 journalists in 15 countries from Feb.1-March 1, 2021, here are the behaviors that would make today’s journalists block a PR person or put them on their “do not call” list:

• Spamming with irrelevant pitches, 73%

• Following up repeatedly, 51.7%

• Providing inaccurate or unsourced information, 51.3%

• Making pitches that sound like marketing brochures, 50.6%

• Dodging inquiries/lack of transparency, 46.1%

• Failing to respond the same day/within deadline, 29%

• Breaking embargoes, 23.5%

• Canceling at the last minute, 23.5%

How many of these things do you do when dealing with reporters? Avoid these actions if you want to preserve your trustworthiness as a source.