Greatly Improved Profnet Interface

If Profnet's interface has driven you off in search of other tools for finding sources, you might consider giving it another try. I needed to find this morning a type of legal source that Profnet has been helpful in reaching (and I'm guessing that the HARO mailing had already gone out). Happily, they have made some important changes in the interface that makes it more manageable. For example, to set the date, you no longer have to wait for the calendar to come up and then click on the date. Instead, drop down boxes let you quickly pick month, day, and time. Choosing geographic areas all happens with check boxes, and by clicking on one of the associated plus signs, you can immediately expand a given area into its constituent parts. It reminds me of how the service used to work, and is certainly a change for the better.

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.

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.

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 SITE

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

He 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.
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.

ProfNet Update

Yesterday I noted that someone was re-posting ProfNet queries onto an open site on the Internet. I have a call today and was told that things looked resolved, but would get an email when it was official. Just got the email:

The queries issue has been resolved. The site has been taken down and the person's ProfNet account has been terminated.

It's good that this particular episode is over, but this isn't the first time that it has happened. I'd say that anyone using ProfNet or any of the other query distribution services will have to be someone circumspect going forward and assume, like you must with anything written, that it could come back to haunt you publicly.

ProfNet Queries Posted for Open View

Many freelance writers use ProfNet to find potential sources that might not easily be located through other methods. In the past there have been some incidents of queries being made public, but now it appears that Vox.com is publishing entire ProfNet feeds on an open web site.

I just found one of mine up there, which is disturbing, because it now is open to anyone, including competitors of my clients. (I typically have used ProfNet to submit queries on some topics, but have restricted their being circulated to media companies.) Also, the contact information for the people submitting queries is also published, meaning that you might find yourself being put on various mailing lists without your permission.

Although I've used ProfNet for years, I'm wondering whether it's time to stop using the service. It would be a pity, as there are times I want companies that have certain experiences or background and doing searches of news stories would be unlikely to turn up what I need.

Using Profnet Effectively

I've seen many writers complaining about Profnet as of late. The dislike of the interface I can't do much about. But on problems with getting responses, there are a few pointers I can offer after using the service since its early days and having a fair amount of success in getting what I need from it:

• Strong Headline - I don't mean overly clever, but something that gets across the essence of what you're seeking. Be as clear and specific as you can, so when PR people glance through the headlines, they will notice your query and whether they have something applicable.


• Don't Cloak - There are times when you might absolutely have to, but in general, don't cloak your queries. This is an example of having to outguess the mental processes of the PR people. They're trying to get the most high profile press for their clients. If they know the name - and it's rare they're knowing is a significant problem - then they can either approach their clients or not without having to ask you for the name first, which they'll probably want, and reasonably so. What I do, however, is to make sure that in the recipient categories I do not check media. That keeps me from sending the query to potential competitors.


• Be Descriptive - I've found that writing an effective query has a lot in common with writing a good piece of marketing. I put in the material I'm looking for, but try to phrase it in such a way that I get someone's interest. Let them see their clients in the piece so they'll respond. Some clients will say no after hearing about it, but that's an occupational hazard and leads to the next point.


• Don't Sweat Small Stuff - There will be PR people who send you something off-target, or who talk about their clients and then say a day or two later that the client isn't interested. Just let it roll off your back. After all, you've lost, what, maybe 30 to 60 seconds of reading an email and replying? It hasn't been that big a burden. If someone is completely off base, just reply, "Thanks, but not a fit."


• Try, Try Again - This is something I've learned only recently. There was a time that you'd get a strong response any time you used Profnet. But now I've seen times when I sent a query and got nothing. But I've started trying to resend them on other days and, presto, I get some targeted sources. I don't know why everyone who catches it on a later date doesn't the first time, but it's easy enough to send a second time. Sometimes I'll even reword the head or body of the query if I think it will help improve response.


• Avoid Conflict - Here's another point where you have to put yourself in the PR person's shoes. They may not want their clients getting into a story that could prove embarrassing. So try toning down your word choices, using less inflammatory terms, and put a "happy spin" that still leaves you with the essence of what you're seeking. You can ask the tougher questions when the person is on the phone, but get them on the phone without using false pretenses. For example, I had to do a story on marketing people becoming obsolete for lack of continued training. Put that way, I got nothing. So I asked about where some extra learning or training meant the difference between success and failure, and suddenly I had some takers. No one wanted to say, "I am professionally obsolete." No wonder.


• Don't Say Pitch Thanks to a freelancer who took a full-time PR job and suggested not to say that you're working on a pitch for a publication. That's a red flag of a non-existent article that could have a source spinning wheels for no reason. If you can truthfully say so, instead say that you're preparing a proposal at an editor's request.

This won't cure all of your problems with Profnet, but it might help you get sources more frequently and with less hassle.