Telling Tales

Interesting dilemma being discussed in hack circles this week.

A well-respected travel journalist gets a press release about a new range of foreign holidays being launched by a travel operator.

It looks interesting so she calls the PR, who says they’d be delighted to offer her a place on a trip to any of their destinations. The journalist secures a commission, calls back the PR with her preferred destination and dates and – oops – that destination is fully booked. In fact, all the destinations are booked. How about a week in Torquay instead? (seriously)

The journalist is hopping mad and emails the PR to complain that she’s going to have to let an editor down. The PR’s response? “Sorry to disappoint you. Thanks for your interest, though.”

Now, here’s where the dilemma comes in. The journalist considers calling the travel company direct to complain about the PR agency offering trips that weren’t available – but feels bad about telling tales, and just fumes in silence instead. 

I think she’s wrong and here’s why: that travel company is paying a monthly fee to the PR agency in return for (among other things) securing editorial coverage and building relationships with key press. If the agency is doing an actively bad job in that area, I think that’s information a marketing director should have. If nothing else, they are in a position to call the PR agency and insist things are done differently next time around.

I’ve only ever been in the position of contacting a client to complain about a PR agency once in ten years as a journalist. In that case the agency had lied about a customer case study, which annoyed me and also annoyed the customer, who had set aside an hour of his day for an interview that turned out to be a waste of time.

I figured the marketing director would want to know the PR agency was not just having problems meeting my needs, but was also potentially hacking off the client’s customers – this is generally considered to be A Bad Thing.

But some hack friends tell me this was a harsh thing to do – and I can see their point insofar as I get wildly annoyed when a PR complains about something I’ve done to an editor. What do you think? Is telling tales bad form? And if so, what should hacks do when PRs get it wrong (aside from start a blog and moan about it online, obviously)? 

Comments

[katie moffat]

From a flak's perspective I think ringing and complaining was justified. The part of the story I find most shocking is the "Sorry to disappoint you. Thanks for your interest, though.” But I'm sure I know exactly what it is. I bet it was an account exec with hardly any experience. They'd probably been given the job by account director or whoever and not properly briefed. Sadly I think not training execs and just throwing them in at the deep end in pretty common in some agencies.
Even for the inexperienced though, treating anyone like that doesn't show much common sense.
On the flip side though, I can't imagine that a PR person complaining to an editor about the behaviour of a journalist would get much response. Unless the PR person reprented a pretty powerful brand/company/indvidual.

[Sean Fleming]

Depends on the motivation for putting in the complaining call to the client.

If it's because the journo genuinely feels the PR agency is damaging relations with the media, fair enough.

If it's just because they're pissed off about failing to blag a free trip somewhere they'd always fancied going, then it isn't.

You can't play the professional integrity card while being petulant and be taken seriously at the same time.

But rather than call the client, why not talk to someone more senior within the agency..? That's "talk" and not issue threats, spit bile, chuck toys out of pram, etc.

As someone said to me not long ago, I catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. She didn't say what she does with the flies though.

[David Child]

I partly agree with Sean, partly with Kate (and yes the fence is hurting). It seems the major issue is that the journalist didn't get their free trip: read PR sends out blanket email to loads of journos when they only have limited spaces then, as is nearly always the case, the journalists jump at the chance of a freebie and all the places get filled. The PR clearly boobed by not targeting - but more importantly by not reserving a place from a journalist who actually bothered to call (in itself sometimes a minor miracle). So as long as the journalist had a serious issue - and expressed it in a serious way - then I think it's justified to go straight to the client (while maybe first giving the boss of the PR company an advance warning).

Clients have a right to know what journalists actually think of the relationship with their PR company. I'd be more than happy for journalists to call with good comments - and, if they had them, bad comments. We all learn from it and the chances are the relationship you have with your client means that you can make amends.

A client's one thing, a journalist scorned is quite another however - keeping them both happy is the challenge of being in PR.

[Sally]

Sean

I think - and I'm basing this on how I'd feel - the hack isn't pissed off at not blagging a free trip. It's having sold a feature and then having to go back to the editor and tell them the great story you offered? You don't have it.

When you get that sort of a commission, it's tempting to mentally "bank" the fee, and when the commission falls through you feel as though you've lost that income, and potentially also future income if the editor decides you're now flaky or unreliable.

What I think the PR exec did that was unprofessional was:

- offering places to more hacks than could be dealt with if they all said yes (too busy to offer them one by one, presumably)

- saying trips were available when they clearly weren't, or at least when they were almost full - and not alerting the journalist to the possibility during the phone conversation, or perhaps saying something like "there are only two spots left for X, I can pencil one in for you if you want to call the mag and check they want it, providing you let me know by 12pm"

- the sign-off is just snotty. Sorry. "Thanks for your interest" like the journalist was asking for some special favour. Ugh.

[Sherrilynne Starkie]

Good post Sally. I've had a similar dilemma lately and find the discussion helpful.

[Sherrilynne Starkie]

Good post Sally. I've had a similar dilemma lately and find the discussion helpful.

[Sherrilynne Starkie]

Good post Sally. I've had a similar dilemma lately and find the discussion helpful.