When PRs call, ‘do not answer’
Dr Mumbo loves a good screenshot – although come the information apocalypse he may regret that sentiment.
So you can imagine how thrilled he was to be treated to a screengrab of Junkee managing editor Rob Stott’s phone, complete with how he saves the numbers of needy public relations professionals.
Honesty is the best policy
However does he tell them all apart?
Junkee co-founder Tim Duggan shared the revealing directory at Mumbrella’s CommsCon, prefacing it with “Now don’t hate me…”
Duggan clarified that Stott meant no offence: “The point of putting that up was not to embarrass anyone, but the point was, when you work on the front line and you have people constantly calling you, constantly trying to get our attention, this is kind of one of the side effects that happens – which is, it’s [calling people] not the best way of getting through to someone. Particular journalists, editors, hate speaking on the phone. They hate speaking to their parents on the phone, let alone a stranger or someone trying to get them to do something.”
Dr Mumbo can only dream of what he might be saved as in Stott’s phone.
I’ve heard that they do that at the Wall Street Journal, too
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Ugh. Could we at least agree to qualify this with not answering the phone to ANNOYING PR consultants (by the way, no one is ‘a PR’ – PR is not a noun FFS!) because the good ones know how and when to contact a journalist. Maybe the industry is rife with nongs who pitch incessantly for no good reason and bug journalists – but I have yet to meet one. I am sure there are a few around, but lumping the rest of us in with this annoying hacks vs flack narrative is more divisive than reality warrants.
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