7:30am, Wednesday,
February 16th.  Coffee, lots of coffee.  I was up bright-n-early to check out
the "Meet the Press" panel that was put on at the RSA Conference by the folks from PR
Sourcecode.  Okay, so 7:30am might not be considered that early, but when
you take into account the late night networking activity I had with many of my
fellow security press buddies, it’s early.  As expected, the room was packed,
mostly with junior-level PR practitioners, as well as with others, including
marketing folks from the IT vendor community.  All-in-all, I think the event
went as expected.  The members of the distinguished press panel included: Larry
Walsh (Information Security
magazine), Paul Roberts (IDG News Service), Eric Knorr (InfoWorld),
Dennis Fisher (eWeek), Christine Burns (NetworkWorld).

It is always a
good opportunity to witness these types of panel discussions first-hand to get a
true understanding as to why the PR community as a whole, is not
particularly well thought of by the journalist community, as a whole. 
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but by-and-large, this is a reality that
became even more vivid during the panel discussion.  Perhaps it
wasn’t the discussion itself, but the train wreck that shortly followed, the
open Q&A session: PR practitioners to the panelists.  As I sat there in
amazement, one ridiculous question followed another.  For example, one person asked, "How do you like to be
pitched…via phone or email?"  The irony here of
course is the fact that the event was put on PR Sourcecode, the folks who
provide PR practitioners with a tool that gives us the answer (and more) to the
many general questions that we have for the journalists that we are
pitching.

It does however,
prove the point of the panelists, and journalists everywhere, regarding the
primary problem — most PR people simply
do not take the time to understand the reporters
they are pitching. While the panel
discussion was an opportunity for PR folks to get to know the journalists a
little better, to me, the event simply reaffirmed that far too many PR practitioners, both
internal and agency-side, simply don’t get it.  Public relations cannot be boiled down to a "checklist"
of activities that need to be executed to secure coverage.  This is not a cookie
cutter profession that we work in and to treat it as such does a
disservice to everyone involved.

A special thanks
goes out to Larry
Walsh, who actually provided me personally with some kudos during the
discussion.  It sure had a few heads turning in the audience to see who this PR guy
was!

– Tim Whitman