Journalists blocking PR people

[Andrew]

How do you journalists feel about this:

http://prspammers.pbwiki.com/

My take: This is a backlash against the mass distribution model of PR. Technology has made it far too easy to send loads of low quality content to journalists and bloggers. Journalists and bloggers are overloading and using technology to not just filter PR content but to block it in its entirety. These are extreme measures that, if adopted on a broad scale, could cause real problems for the PR industry. How does the PR industry reverse this trend? It starts with creating a quality standard for all PR content. They do it in newsrooms (editors, copyeditors etc), so why not do it with PR.

[Brad King]

I'm not sure that I'd ever block anyone -- and scanning the list, I think the list was more for filtering purposes (not that you couldn't easily block as well).

Spam is a part of a reporter's life. That's why I encourage every PR agency to set up RSS feeds, designate tags for them and allow reporters to find them. Within the next five years, I'll bet (I'll hope) that most places have these feeds in place -- and the role of the PR agent will be to make contact and inform journalists about the companies they cover.

My biggest problem with PR folks (okay, one of them) was I never knew which companies they covered, what sectors and the like. I don't have time to hit every site every day. Having those feeds accessible for me would make everyone's job so much easier I think.