Techniques for Making Query Services Work

There are a number of journalist query services, including ProfNet, HARO, Gorkana, and Businesswire. Some don't do much, and some can create inundation. Someone on a writers' forum had mentioned getting swamped by responses, so much so that using the service in question became a problem. Here are some suggestions I had for how to effectively use the services and cut down on the unnecessary flood:

• Choose the right service for the right use. Over time you'll get a sense of how they work in different circumstances. For example, I've found that to reach lawyers at large firms, for example, ProfNet is the way to go. HARO has a broader reach. As you use a service over time, learn the characteristics and put it to the most effective use possible.


• If you're being swamped for days, set your deadline for same day or next morning. That alone will reduce things. You'll still get some people trying after the deadline, but you won't get the people who do respect deadlines, which will cut back the volume.


• Use it for specific, possibly "technical" (as in referring to specific expertise or knowledge of a subject) topics. Fewer people will assume that they could position themselves to be a fit.


• Quickly scan emails and have a "thanks, but no thanks" copied onto the clipboard. Then hit reply, past in the answer, and send it off.

Bnet's Catching Flack Doesn't Catch Query Posting Problem

When I posted about HARO queries being posted on a blog, I guess I must have hit a nerve, as both Mediabistro's PR Newser and Bnet's Catching Flack picked up on it. (Must have been a slow news minute in the blogosphere.)

Unfortunately, I think that Jon Greet on Catching Flack didn't catch what was really going on. First, he seemed to take exception with Shankman's taking exception with the PR person taking the queries and putting them on a blog:

For starters, email is Internet content. It may not be de facto ok to republish it, but you can’t just tell people no. What’s to stop the offender from resubscribing via another email account and reposting the emails via an anonymous blog? Nothing, really. Or, what’s to stop a HARO subscriber from forwarding a HARO email to any number of their friends? Again, nothing.

A variation on the argument could be made that just because it's illegal to rob a store, what's to stop someone? Because it is illegal - and immoral and unethical. Similar to Profnet emailing queries, the HARO emails are copyrighted compilations, and the individual queries are copyrighted by the reporters.

Under both international and US copyright law, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, people do not have the right to take copyrighted material and post it on the web, absent a fair use argument. Posting something in its entirety on a commercial site as a way to attract traffic could be a textbook example of something that was not fair use. And the person whose copyright has been infringed has a number of legal remedies, just as the shop owner who has been robbed has.

In addition, Greer called the letter a "hissy fit." However, he happened to have left out its middle - the part about openly posting the email addresses of reporters, which makes them subject to the harvesting of spambots. (I'd have added that open posting also presents competitive problems for the writers and publishers looking for sources, because it starts identifying which publications are looking at particular stories.) By leaving out that part, I think he badly and unfairly mischaracterized Shankman's reaction - and the reaction of the writers I know whose queries were posted.

This post isn’t about ethics. I could argue both sides of the ethics debate. What its about is that the Internet is a super-powerful communications tool and you can’t take for granted that pre-Internet rules of engagement automatically apply. You have to anticipate how the power of the Internet may impact what you are doing or want to do, and adapt. You just can’t make assumptions.

When you ridicule someone for objecting to a practice, you are talking about ethics in more ways than one. The issue in question was one of ethics, and by slanting the appearance of the letter, there's an entire other aspect of ethics that comes into play.

Finally, Greer argues the following:

So if Shankman wants to make HARO a strong and viable service that will survive, he’ll have to think through some of these implications and adapt or change the service. Otherwise, HARO is going to flame out, as journalists abandon it because they no longer find it to be an efficient and credible source of information.

Quite the opposite. To embrace having everything posted openly would be the kiss of death. Many writers got leery of Profnet when someone started posting those queries, and I know a number that had a similar reaction when the HARO ones appeared. You might argue that the reporters are being unreasonable, but then why not extend that to everything private, and have all of our information, no matter what, posted? Because that would be nuts, and just because something is possible doesn't mean that you should tolerate it. And that's exactly the point here.