Don’t get me wrong. Some PRs are fab – the ones who have been in the business since Sun City was just a twinkle in Sol Kerzner’s eye, and who understand how media works, but they’re about as prolific as aardvarks.
Then you get the ones who invite you to their client’s venue as a freelance travel journalist but insist that you fill in a form upfront stating (and I kid you not) how you intend to write the story. What angle will you take? And what tone?
They extended the “invitation” to you. You have not clapped eyes on the place. How then should you form an opinion or decide on your angle? Remote viewing?
What I find even more annoying – and why I refuse to fill in their poxy forms is that they also want to know what publications will be running your pieces – note the plural – when they will be published, how much this would cost in ad-spend, oh yes, and the latest circulation or LSM figures. Seriously? I’m afraid so.
As a freelance journalist, you submit copy to an editor of a publication. You wait. And you live in hope. Sometimes there’s no response for three weeks. Sometimes there’s no response, ever. But we freelancers live by our wits. If one door closes, we kick another one down. And we manage somehow. We’ve been doing this – many of us – for the last 20 years or so.
But – as I’ve pointed out many a time and oft – there ARE no guarantees. Period. Forcing freelance hacks to sign “guarantees” that a glowing report on their client’s venue will appear as the lead item with 12 images spread over five pages in a mainstream newspaper or magazine – even if you regularly contribute to said publication – is not worth the paper it’s written on.
I asked one PR offering me two nights in a “luxury” self-catering apartment in Cape Town – no meals, flights from JHB to CT for my own account – how she expected me to get (closely-guarded) circulation figures of a publication that hadn’t agreed to accept the piece I hadn’t written yet.
How would I know what said publication might charge for ads on the pages where my hypothetical piece might run? This felt like an incomprehensible algebra problem and my head was beginning to spin.
But guess what the PR said to me? Just guess. Seriously. That’s what she said: “just guess”. So to humour her I threw out a figure of R100 000 for an ad on the front page of a newspaper, a “hypothetical” guess. What would I know?
I’ve never sold ads. Editorial and advertising are not supposed to get into bed together although times are a-changing on that score, more’s the pity.
I ended up staying two days at the self-catering venue at the end of August, gave them a good write-up in a widely-read, quarterly business magazine, mentioned them in two other articles, and sent PDFs of all three pieces to the PR. Thanks? You must be joking. The PDFs were not even acknowledged.
I can’t say what my work was worth in “ad-spend” but the pee aar’s client got the better end of the bargain by far – I got a bed for two nights in the low season. Meals and flights were for my own account. Had I paid for the accommodation it would have cost under R5000.
Imagine my surprise when I get an email from the PR, saying “the client” was “very disappointed” with the exposure as he didn’t see how it worked out to R100 000’s worth. Excuse me? Yup. Was I gob-smacked? Did the pope resign?
Yes, I do recycle my articles – how else can a freelance hack survive – but I wait at least six-months to do so. When I pointed out this out to the PR and reminded her what had been published, she admitted she had “forgotten to send the PDFs to the client”. Could I please search for them and send them to her again?
As of writing, I have not yet formulated a reply. Perhaps I’ll maintain a dignified silence. Or not …
Caroline Hurry is the editor-in-chief of Travelwrite.
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17 Comments
Stevie Godson
Bloody typical, sad to say. And as for those forms, as absurd as anything Alice saw through the looking glass….
Karen
Um. Isn’t that what advertising is for?
Anonymous
Hmm. My view is any PR worth their salt can write their own stories. And they should. It just blurs the lines when PRs asks journalists to do their dirty work for them. That means PRs set the agenda, and the media just follows and writes and publishes whatever PRs contrive. This is obvious in the repetition in the print media, and not only regarding the hospitality industry. PR companies ought to employ journalists to write for them. I know when I was headhunted for a big PR job that what I wrote was reprinted VERBATIM (yes!). Nice for me but I wondered about ethics… It was their lucky day when they found me. I also did radio scripts, speeches for suits, media troubleshooting, etc. The speech writing: I loved that! Point is: SA is in such a blurry muddled phase at the moment that anything goes and its the survival of the fittest. We need a tsunami of a cleansing ceremony (thanks Lerato, for the idea). As for the figures that the PR wanted you to provide, that is the work of the PR. Or it ought to be. It’s a mess guys. Let’s face it. And do something about it. M
Quentin Wray
You should all read a book called “Toxic Sludge is Good for You”. This makes our lot seem like angels.
Marisa 'eM' Louw
I feel your pain. I am a freelance PR who has worked very hard to establish a fab reputation with my editors/journos. As disqus_L.. rightly states below, a worthy PR would write their own articles and get it published, which is exactly what I do. In my opinion my editors/journos are my clients and I will bend over backwards to make their lives easier. It is simply a bonus that the paying client receives publicity and certainly not a given. The challenge is that the paying client more often than not has NO clue as to what publicity entails. They think it is free advertising. I cannot tell you how often clients expect to have advertorial published as editorial. I have come to a point where I refuse to write advertorial pieces let alone pitch them to my editors/journos. I guess I can write an entire opinion piece as a follow up to yours but the point I’m trying to make is that there are too many PRs out there who give those of us who work hard at becoming fab, a bad name.
Sue Charlton (APR)
I always feel so embarrassed of my industry when I read of such PRO behaviour as Caroline highlights. I guess I have been around since the twinkle in Sol’s eye and therefore try to build reputable relations with all media players I come into contact with. I support Caroline’s annoyance at being asked by clients ‘when are they going to use the article’ – I really don’t know maybe the editor is staring at it intently at home before they go to bed?! PRO’s should be able to figure out media relations 101 and educate those that pay their salaries. To demand the tone and pitch etc is just pure ignorance or is it some bimbo who thinks she can spin in the office as well as in the gym ???
News ed
I am a lowly news editor of a community newspaper, The amount of unsolicited advertising I receive thinly disguised as a press release is incredible.
The authors of these so-called press releases have no idea what a community newspaper is, or does, or what we’re about. We survive on advertising. Why on earth would I give it away?
Make it local, make it a community project, make it interesting and topical, and then, ensure it fits the style of the newspaper, ensure the word count is less than 300, put full names of the people in the picture, make sure your copy is tight, drop the adspeak, and don’t mention your client/product 17 times in one sentence. Otherwise it is tanked and you go to the spam folder and disappear forever.
And seriously, don’t offer me a freebie.
Caroline Hurry
Oh, well said, “lowly news ed”! One could write a book on bad pee aar pictures alone!
Caroline Hurry
IMHO the best PRs are former journalists themselves … far too many PRs I meet don’t seem to understand the difference between advertorial and editorial.
Caroline Hurry
Quite right. It’s is a must-read for journalists – for everyone, in fact
africanpix
This is the sort of situation where one should name names – give other freelancers the opportuninty to walk away …
You are paying for their incompetence!
Caroline Hurry
I know, Stevie … legally they’re worth zip so why do PRs even bother with them? To placate their clients? Anyone on the ball PR-wise knows that “ad spend” is old hat, especially compared to social media, which many PRs don’t even factor in.
Patricia McCracken
From another disillusioned freelance travel writer, thanks for telling it like it is, Caroline!
Caroline Hurry
Here’s a piece from James Siddall on why PRs drive him nuts too http://bit.ly/ZFL20K
Connie Heuer
Cheapskates.!
Sandy
I LOVED your article! As someone who has been around when Sol himself was a twinkle in his parents’ eyes, I’m horrified with the type of young ‘PR’ out there. Some have a Diploma, my dear, which they feel entitles them to a senior management position……but ask them to write a Brief, or – horror of horrors – a press release, and you see just how much that Diploma is worth. Many of your respondents seem to have clawed their way up like I did. You started waaaaay down at the bottom, learnt from your superiors and slaved for hours over the choice of word, or a turn of a phrase. Oh well – it doesn’t bode well for the future, does it?
Caroline Hurry
Thanks Sandy