The Fleet Street Forum How to Handle PR People Anti-FAQ

1. Always wait until 5pm on Friday to call looking for a quote that "has to be in today". PR people like the adrenaline rush.

2. Always tell the PR person, "I'm sorry, I don't regard you as a good source for a quote. I need to speak to your boss." This is particularly effective with female PR people.

3. Always be rude. PR people misinterpret politeness as lack of urgency.

4. Always call to demand invitations to events for which you've been overlooked. Then don't show up. Remind them who's boss.

5. Accept all invitations to one-on-one interviews. Then, just before you hang up, make a comment that implies you've always wanted to have a real go at the interviewee and you're looking forward to it. PR people hate to feel secure.

6. Always use the same excuse when you miss interviews. PR people will eventually get the hint.

7. A good interviewing technique is to interrupt the interviewee and say you're not interested in his/her opinions, but only in answers to your specific questions. This keeps the interviewee from gaining control.

8. Never thank the PR people for anything. Gratitude upsets them.

9. Do not make positive comments regarding information provided or skills such as writing, presentation, or running an event. Better to say things like, "Gosh, the [name rival PR agency here] event I went to was really good. We had champagne."

10. Always tell PR people what kind of giveaways you want. If you're sick of T-shirts, don't hesitate to say so. PR people really welcome the feedback.

11. Assume that every journalist is exactly like you, and whatever you want is what they'll all want. Educate PR people accordingly.

12. Refuse to help PR people get to know you via questionnaires or off- deadline phone calls. What happened to good old-fashioned social skills?

13. Always yell as abusively as possible when PR people *in your estimation* fail to deliver what they promised. Accept no excuses: these people are *paid* to serve you. Make sure they know you'll complain to their client companies if they don't shape up.

14. If you haven't been invited to a PR company's most recent press event, call them and shout at them for ignoring you. Make sure they realise how important you are.

15. If you missed a press conference, call the PR company and shout at them for not checking that you'd gotten the invitation. If they did call, shout at them for nagging you.

16. Always demand a free meal as the price of doing an interview with a company executive.

17. Request a special meeting with a client because you share his personal interests. Put the PR people to great trouble getting tickets and other access to sought-after locations. Reconfirm when the PR people call you the day before. Don't show up. When the PR people call to ask what's happened, say you forgot.

18. On press trips, be unpredictable. Miss the plane.

19. Never tell PR people organizing a £100 per person event if you're not going to make it. Why should other journalists get the benefit?

20. Don't forget to demand invitations to events to which you've actually already been invited. PR people like to duplicate their workload to take account of your filing 'system'.

21. When a PR who speaks to you at least once a week calls, deny all knowledge of them. They like the anonymity.

22. If the client-company is big corporate like IBM, tell the PR to send you just the two unique words in each press release. PRs appreciate knowing you're a conservationist.

23. When attending press conferences, occasionally ask *on-topic* questions. This will confuse the hell out of the PR who had you earmarked as a trouble-maker.

24. Don't be upset when a journalist calls you at home for background information at 8:30 p.m. and berates you for not being in the office. It's the PR person's fault for not checking her phone mail 24 hours a day. PR People are supposed to live and breathe corporate information at all hours. Besides, the reporter can't HELP it if he procrastinates and doesn't complete his story until the 11th hour EVERY TIME.

Special tips for one-on-one interviews:

The obvious and elegant response is not turning up at all but, unless both client and PR have gone to endless trouble to gratify a specific request - a ride in a Tiger Moth and lunch at the airfield, for example - this may lack a certain frisson.

If you must attend then the following rules should be observed:

1. Never allow the PR any inkling of your social or culinary aberrations - if you're a non-smoking Vegan then that's your business. It's a PR's job to know these things and they've no right to ask.

2. A particularly pushy PR may send you a one page summary about their client. Ignore this - who are they to tell you what to write?

3. Agree immediately when invited to the Ritz or the Wig and Pen, and express bored exasperation when informed they operate a dress code. Such establishments welcome idiosyncrasy -- motorcycle or fell walking gear is good for this -- and the PR will be happy to show off by convincing the manager that you should be lent a jacket and tie.

4. Always complain that the jacket isn't really your colour and object strongly when asked to leave your rucksack with the concierge.

5. You will naturally have arrived the regulation 37 minutes late. No apology is necessary but remarks about not wearing a watch as it makes you feel shackled are always appreciated.

6. Do not on any account produce a notebook or recording device and, if invited to drink, order an obscure real ale in a straight glass. Express amazement if this is unavailable.

7. Let the client talk for thirty seconds and then turn to the PR and ask catatonically if they have any other clients. Simultaneous nose picking is&127; not mandatory but is often regarded as a nice touch.

8. When ordering food, insist on something reasonably complicated. Steak au poivre is good; the PR will be happy to explain to the waiter that you require it without pepper. Sally in the film "When Harry met Sally..." is a good role model for this.

9. Remember to tell both client and PR how IBM flew you first class to some exotic location where they had real Champagne.

10. Finally, ask the PR for pen and paper, ask for the client's name, write it down without checking the spelling, and say you have to leave as you're running late.

Special tips for clients and senior PR people:

1. Enlist the support of the other employees by sending out a memo requiring them to route all press enquiries to the PR person, and then second that person to the City Hall press office due to a staff shortage there. It builds character for the Service Planners, Marketing Staff, Operations Superintendent, etc. to tell reporters to call a person whom they know is not ever available.

2. If you have some old business to settle with your junior staff, a good place to catch them for a stern chat is just before a train load of press people arrive at an opening ceremony that the junior staffer is coordinating.

3. Encourage your PR staff to set up dinner meetings with individual journalists. Announce casually you have another engagement when the journalists actually arrive. Promise to phone the journalist the next day to do the interview. Don't feel you actually have to make this phone call, as journalists are far too thick-skinned to be insulted and far too busy to miss the material you might have provided. These are not people you need to take seriously. If coverage is poor, it will be the PR person's fault, anyway: time for a replacement.

The Fleet Street Forum How to Handle PR People Anti-FAQ was written by sysops and members of the Fleet Street Forum and is copyright (c) 1996 to the Fleet Street Forum www.fleetstreet.org.uk. This file will be updated on an irregular basis. Additional contributions from Forum members or others gratefully accepted at fleet@honk.co.uk. Permission is granted to redistribute this file on condition that the file be copied in its entirety, including this notice.

Contributors so far: Wendy Grossman, Jennifer Perry, Guy Kewney, Mike Hardwidge, Guy Clapperton, Debra Young, Robert Rynerson.

How to Handle Journalists