You Give PR a Bad Name

Today, one of my reporter friends posted a horribly bad pitch on her Facebook page, much to the amusement of all of us who work in this crazy industry. I won't reveal the name of said "publicist" or that of the clueless "award-winning actor" who actually pays some sort of money for such shoddy representation, but the gist of the pitch was "I'd like a front page story for no good reason even though I'm incorrectly pitching to the lifestyle reporter and addressing her by an informal version of her name, and oh yes, by the way, I can't string together a complete sentence."

I have just one question: WHY? Why, oh why must people calling themselves "publicists" behave in such a manner and penalize the rest of us who follow the rules and are actually competent at our jobs? This man and those like him ruin the fun for the rest of us. You, sir, are the reason reporters screen their phone calls, toss my packages in the trash and relegate my carefully crafted pitches to the spam folder.

Please, do us all a favor--get a clue (blogger-in-crime Jennifer A. Jones addresses the dos and don'ts of pitching here) or get a new job! Preferably one that doesn't require common sense or mastery of the English language.