Earlier today in one of the many Slack messages the folks over at EZPR and I had today, one of my colleagues pointed me to a tweet that simply read “check out this dipshit.” Naturally, I had to click on the link and eventually brought me to a tweet that was published on Twitter.
It started with this tweet from Sarah Buhr Davis, who covers health and parent tech over at TechCrunch. The tweet reads, “A reporter’s job is not to take meetings all day to learn about companies. We need you to give us news. We write about news. That is what we do for a living. For some reason this is confusing to some founders. And for some reason it’s often the least interesting ones.”
She’s straight-up giving company execs (and their PR teams) tips on how to pitch her. Harmless, right? Well, not according to Jonathan Beaton, president of Inside Advantage PR. This bozo felt obliged to reply to Sarah’s original tweet with some insight of his own. He replied with this bullshit: “No one complains like a reporter. I’ve never seen first responders, military personal, teachers…etc whine and moan at all, much less like journalists. If it’s so intolerable find a new profession.” Totally normal thing to say here, right?
Let me remind you, this is a guy who is the president of a FUCKING PR FIRM.
Naturally, EZPR’s own Trevor Moore had to step in and make his own observation about Mr. Beaton:
I think Trevor may be onto something here. A guy who tells a journalist that they should leave their chosen profession because it sometimes gives them a reason to complain (what job doesn’t?), may be in fact, not be good at PR. I mean, that’s the only logical answer here. What kind of PR professional says something like this to a journalist? The answer is simple: Definitely not the good ones.
Let’s face it. Everyone complains about their job. You do it. I do it. We all do it. Curtis Silver, who writes for Forbes and KnowTechie sums it up best in a tweet, “every single person in every single profession bitches about their work and interactions throughout.” I mean, he’s not wrong.
It should be painfully clear by now, folks. If you’re a PR person working with journalists in any capacity, you obviously shouldn’t do this.
If you enjoyed this post, check out the rest of our “PR People: Don’t Do This” series, be sure to check out some of the previous entries here, here, and here. Feel free to share them on Facebook or Twitter, we’ll appreciate the love.
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