Tales of the Dark Side: PR Horror Stories

Sounds like a lot of you out there have PR horror stories. Here's (one of) mine.

I was doing consumer in an undisclosed market turning out stories faster than GE cranks out light bulbs. I got a press release that sounded interesting. An insurance company had a study showing which intersections had the most accidents. I call the woman to set it up. She asks what kind of angle am I going to take on the story and is this going to have a negative spin? Huh? YOU called me! If I were doing a negative story, it certainly wouldn't be off a press release you sent AND I'd say to you up front... "Hey, we've gotten some complaints about your company we'd like to ask you about."

I believe she also asked me to submit my questions. (This happens a lot. I do not submit questions in advance and certainly not for some goofy consumer story on danger intersections!) This all should have been a clue that this whole exercise would be a complete waste of time. Did I wisely tell this woman we were no longer interested and I would move on to the one of 800 other stories sitting on my desk? Sadly, I did not.

The PR woman calls back. She says she'd like to arrange a conference call with her, the interview and me. I say, fine. The conference call happens and I'm asking some general questions, like... WHY are these particular intersections problematic? He says, I can't answer that. Ok-- the data only shows where the accidents happen, not why. Fine. I ask, what are some tips for people to avoid accidents? He can't answer that either. It goes on like this. Me asking pretty simple questions speaking to how our viewers would benefit from us doing the story, him being unable to answer. Finally, out of frustration I ask, "Well, what can you talk about?" He says, "XYZ insurance company has new one stop shopping insurance centers to file your claims." Bingo. Not interested.

If you're going to pitch me a story, I'm happy to interview your expert but please make sure he can answer more than one question and don't insult my intelligence by pitching one story when you're really pushing another one.