As an indication of how pervasive social media has become, I found myself scribbling down (yes, on paper) the URLs for a number of interesting blogs I read about in a magazine while waiting for an appointment. I just added to the list a blog one of my colleagues told me about -- angryjournalist.com.
As a former journalist and current PR practitioner, I worried about what I might find -- constant rants about PR people were my biggest fear. Nope. Not even close. To be honest, reading through something that reminded me of the Facebook "what are you doing today?" profile entry, this site is a series of quick vents. There is substance here and there, but, overall, it doesn't make the fourth estate proud, in my humble opinion.
I may be able to use it in the future to make my point to executives whom I am trying to sensitize to the pressures on journalists before they are interviewed by them. There certainly is a lot of frustration and anger in this group. Interestingly, not a lot of it is pointing to social media, which essentially is taking away jobs from good journalists. At least until the core blogs themselves morph completely into pubs and hire all of the great journalists to staff them.
I definitely don't want to see someone launch an angryprperson.com blog anytime soon. But perhaps a blog version of 60 Minutes old Point/Counterpoint between the press and PR might be interesting. I know, I know, that dates me, as this was in the 70s. But it was an interesting segment that pitted an opinionated conservative against a similarly loquacious liberal and the sparks definitely flew. A spoof of the segment on Saturday Night Live created the famous line, "Jane, you ignorant slut. . . " which the conservative used as part of his rebuttal of the liberal's viewpoints.
We're not always on opposite sides, though, so this might not work. A very kind journalist at a well respected pub took the time this week to commend one of our staffers on a great pitch that he was able to use for a good article. When it works -- the uneasy alliance between good PR people and good journalists -- it's a beautiful thing.
But anyone who is getting ready to bother a busy journalist with a pitch or a request that isn't as spot on, concise and well thought out as the one from our staffer definitely should tune into the angryjournalist.com blog before sending that email or picking up that phone. It will definitely make them stop and think -- and shorten and rewrite, hopefully. Or maybe even put down the phone entirely.
