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Note: Brian Dolby offers his guide to being a better PR person in 2010
What journalists hate about PRs, and how to make the press happier
At press conferences, make sure speakers have
clear name badges
Your email should have a subject line and all your contact
information
At home I have a fridge magnet which advises me that, before being critical of someone I should first walk a mile in their shoes. Then, when they react, I'll be a mile away and I'll have their shoes.
Now PR people, let's face it, are often critical of the media especially the trade journalists and yet how many of us have actually lived the life of a journalist and thought about the difficulties and frustrations on their side of the industry? We should be excellent communicators and yet often frustrations borne out of ignorance of each other's problems can lead to conflict and difficulties.
Remember for a start that the media, as well as the telecoms industry, suffered a major crisis in the early part of the century. Service providers and vendors, desperate to survive themselves, slashed the trade media's lifeblood, advertising, overnight.
I still recall one leading publisher telling me that in a single day calls from panic-stricken customers had wiped L120,000 off his budget. By the evening the decision had been taken to close well-established offices, declare redundancies and get out before it was too late.
This disaster, coupled with the explosion in internet-based media, has seen only the very best print titles able to survive and prosper. But even those that remain have fewer staff who have to write for both print and online.
So bearing that in mind, is it realistic to expect an editor to leave his office for a whole day just to meet your new marketing director? Can he or she really be expected to fly off to Europe to look at a new installation? The answer is a resounding "no" and true PR professionals need to realise and appreciate the changing world they operate in.
Irritations
So what really irritates today's hard-pressed telecoms media person? What is guaranteed to make sure you never appear on his or her Christmas card list again? Here are a few ways...