Help a Reporter Query Service Getting Posted Online
You may remember the mini-furor of the other week when someone subscribing to PR Newswire was reposting all the queries onto the Internet. For a number of reporters who had become disenchanted with ProfNet, its new interface, and the quality of leads they thought had declined, this seemed the last straw, or close to it, for ProfNet. Then PR person Peter Shankman started his Help A Reporter service, which has been gaining quick traction. Ah, but now those leads are getting posted.
Independent PR person Nicole Lascelle has been posting the complete feeds to her site - certainly without permission, as I found one of my own queries on the list and no one had asked me whether I minded having such materials put out in the open. She's including email addresses, so if you find yourself on even more spam lists, this might be why.
When will PR people realize that journalists have lots of reasons not to make their queries generally available to the public - like not wanting to tip off what they're working on and for whom. I'll be dropping a line to Mr. Shankman to let him know what is happening. So much for common sense confidentiality.
In short, folks, if you don't want anyone else ever to be able to see a query, don't use one of these lead systems, because there is no way the owners can prevent the information from being passed around.
Independent PR person Nicole Lascelle has been posting the complete feeds to her site - certainly without permission, as I found one of my own queries on the list and no one had asked me whether I minded having such materials put out in the open. She's including email addresses, so if you find yourself on even more spam lists, this might be why.
When will PR people realize that journalists have lots of reasons not to make their queries generally available to the public - like not wanting to tip off what they're working on and for whom. I'll be dropping a line to Mr. Shankman to let him know what is happening. So much for common sense confidentiality.
Update
I received a reply from Peter Shankman literally within four minutes of my emailing him. He copied me on an email he sent to Ms. Lascelle and on the phone gave me permission to post it:Subject: NO. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO POST MY EMAILS ON YOUR SITEHe also mentioned that he knows of PR people who, to curry favor from reporters, will pass on entire ProfNet lead transmissions, and noted that if someone gets the text version of the ProfNet emails, they can pass it on undetected by PRNewswire, which owns the ProfNet service.
Nicole:
You’re posting my HARO emails on your site without my permission.
REMOVE THEM NOW.
This is not subject to negotiation. You’re putting reporter emails up for Spam-bots to harvest. Have you lost your MIND? And you wonder why reporters hate publicists?
I notice that you put your own emails in (parens) so they’re not harvested, why would you not have the basic decency to do the same?
Take EVERY SINGLE ONE DOWN NOW, and NEVER post another one of my emails.
Peter Shankman
In short, folks, if you don't want anyone else ever to be able to see a query, don't use one of these lead systems, because there is no way the owners can prevent the information from being passed around.
posted by Erik Sherman | 3:39 PM
5 Comments:
They're gone now, Erik. But that quick response, immediate action, and stern e-mail is precisely why I trust Peter's service more than I would, say, Profnet.
Wow. Another great post full of research and action, Erik. And hats off to Peter Shankman for his strong letter.
Erik,
I just found out about Lascelle's terrible judgment, searched and found your post. At least, to her credit, the link you posted to her blog takes visitors to a page stating the blog has been deleted.
On behalf of all PR suppposed pros, I'm sorry. Some of use either suck or have poor judgment -- or both.
Mike
Wow, that was quick... she took down the whole blog. Good.
Sheesh. What are people thinking??
I agree that Lascelle made a terrible error in judgement, and I'm glad Peter issued the takedown (and issued a stern order to the rest of the group)...
But, let's start thinking ahead to what happens when his group continues to grow, which he seems to be encouraging, and members continue forwarding the queries. At some point, the content will be uncontrollable -- how will Peter track where this info ends up? It follows to question why reporters would trust anything to be kept confidential.
Having said all that, as a PR pro and a big fan of Peter, I think he has nothing but good intentions here and I love the service he's created. The problem is that I can't say the same for all my industry peers.
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