A Manifesto for a Brave New Blogging World

The content of this post can be found on a sub-site of the Contact page, but I thought I’d also post it here.

As regular readers are aware, recent changes to US law mean that bloggers are expected to disclose free samples, invitations etc., that mainstream journalists are not. My take on this is that bloggers need to accept that they are now (particularly with print media disappearing) part of the mainstream media and act accordingly.

Comments in a recent post on this topic lead to a discussion about how PR companies often try to pressure or intimidate inexperienced bloggers, and how those bloggers cannot be trusted in terms of giving a fair assessment or coverage of products, meals or events that they received for free.

Since I believe that bloggers should be accepted into the mainstream and treated the same as regular journalists, the onus is now on individual bloggers to make it clear to PR companies of all stripes, and their representatives, what they will and will not cover and how/why.

The following is the list for PR people to use when contacting me regarding covering an event, shop or product. I will be creating a separate, but likely very similar, version for TasteTO. I encourage other food bloggers who do reviews or offer local event coverage to do the same, and post it on their own site to make their intentions and modus operandi clear.

Making Contact

• Bloggers all have a different focus and intention for their individual publications – it is your job to read our work, be familiar with what we cover and adjust your correspondence accordingly – do not simply skim the first page and mention some of the recent topics I’ve covered in your initial email – this is lame.
• In the same vein – if you are making contact based on a post on Twitter, make sure you know what you’re talking about. We run a daily food events post on TasteTO called “Flavours of the Day”. This shows up on our Twitter feed with just the title of the post, and I once received an email from a PR person suggesting that the “flavour of the day” be “lime” so we could mention the crappy lime flavoured beer they were representing. If your contact email makes me run around the room screaming “Augh!!!”, that likely means no coverage for you.
• If you are working on behalf of a specific client or product, take the time to search my site to see if it has been covered/mentioned, and in what context. I was once contacted by someone representing Hellman’s who obviously had never bothered to read my diatribe against Unilever.
• - Tell me who the client is, straight up – bullshit like “I’m writing on behalf of a client who is at the forefront of the local food movement” or “come to a party for a high end spirit company” makes me think you have something to hide. I’ve been using the internet since 1994. Odds are, I know how to do more things with it than you do – including checking your website to peruse your client list and figure out who you’re shilling for. Don’t treat me like I’m dumb, and I won’t assume that you are.
• Get a real email address associated with your company. Anything from a free address is presumed to be sketchy.
• Dump the fake flattery.
• Humility will get you further than arrogance. 99.99% of the pitches I receive where someone tells me that I “will want to feature X” or “your readers will be interested in X” go directly to my circular file. I decide what goes on my site – not you.

First Impressions

• Make the information you are sending clear and easy to access. I hate attachments and rarely open them unless I’m planning on writing about what you’re promoting. Plain text is your friend. And there’s nothing that enrages me more than to open an attachment and have it include the same info that was sent in the plain text email.
• I don’t care about how pretty your email or your press package looks. I’m in the information and communication business – logos, html, attachments and fluff are things that get in the way of the black and white details I need to write the article.
• Give me the 5Ws (who, what, where, when, why) and how – at the beginning of your press release. Don’t make me dig for the stuff you need me to know.
• Think about what your contact/press package says about your client overall – I once got a press package that was a 3 page file attachment from a new pastry shop – 1 page (3 short paragraphs, actually) was about the shop, the other two were about the firm that designed/decorated the shop and the PR company. To me, this says that this company cares more about appearances than quality products.
• Offers of payola of any kind (cash, gift certificates, product) in exchange for a favourable story will earn you my utter disdain. And possibly a really, really infuriated reply, depending on my mood.

Events

• Make invitations to events clear: time, date and address, of course, but also tell me whether it’s for cocktails or a full meal.
• Make your event appropriate for the time frame – canapés and cocktails might be nifty in the late afternoon or evening but if you throw an event at noon and expect writers to give up their lunch hour to attend, you had darned well better be serving lunch. Likewise, don’t send me an invite that tells me the cocktail reception starts at 6pm, only to hand me a 10-course tasting menu when I arrive.
• Swag – swag is good, we like swag, but make sure it’s appropriate to the event. And make sure your press package info actually deals with the event you want me to write about. I once attended a dinner featuring a chef from another country and the swag bag was piles of stuff from that country’s trade commission – and nothing at all about the chef, the local restaurant where they were cooking, etc.
• Know that I probably need to take photos and think of proper lighting when planning your event – I know that is sometimes beyond the control of a PR company, but your job is to help me do my job better. And to make your client or their product look good, I need decent lighting to take photos.
• If you have your own photographer at the event, contact me the next day to ask if I need additional images. But don’t just send them without asking.
• Perfume – this is more of a personal issue, but one that should be standard in an industry where writers and critics need to be able to taste and smell the food, wine, etc that you are promoting. NO PERFUME!! NO SCENTED PRODUCTS OF ANY KIND. For some people in this industry their noses are their whole career, and I can’t begin to list the number of food media events where I’ve shown up and the PR staff were all doused in perfume. I have taken to walking out of events where the perfume is too strong, which usually means that I will not offer coverage.

Sending Product

• Always, always, always contact me first to ask if I am interested in the product you are representing – EVERY TIME. There are two reasons for this – first, maybe I don’t want what you’re sending. Second – I work from home in a high-rise with no concierge. Sometimes I actually go out into the world. If I don’t know to expect a package from you – especially if it’s been sent by courier – I don’t know to be here to accept it, do I? Unsolicited products will absolutely not be covered. I’ll take ‘em when they show up, and use them, or share them with friends, but if you can’t be courteous enough to ask me if I want them in the first place, no coverage for you.
• Even if you follow rule #1 above, I may not write about the stuff you send me. That’s my prerogative, and I probably have a good reason, usually because I didn’t like it. Also, I’m a cynical curmudgeon, so don’t assume that if I do write about your product that it will be favourable.
• Don’t suggest copy. I may use something from a well-written press release if it’s concise, but I do this writing thing full time – I’m pretty good at coming up with the words on my own.

Other Stuff

• Quality over quantity – while I understand that it is the job of the PR company to get as much media coverage for their client as possible, don’t saturate the story. If I find out that every food blogger in Toronto (even the ones who only ever write about recipes) got an invite to a restaurant opening, I won’t even bother to attend. If I show up to an event and discover oodles of local food bloggers there, I probably won’t write the story, because I’d rather have unique content on my site than what everyone else is also writing about.
• Don’t harass me after the fact. Emailing me to ask when I’m going to write about your event/product is a really good way to not get covered. I’m not a naive blogger who feels guilty and indebted because you sent me some salad dressing – I decide what gets covered here.
• If your company has someone dedicated to making contact with bloggers or Twitterers (aka. a “social media expert”), change their title (because we’ve all started to keep an eye out for “social media experts” so we can avoid them like the plague) or make sure they really know what they’re doing – as indicated in some of the examples above, there is nothing that will make your company look worse than someone whose job it is to keep up on what’s happening in the blogosphere who doesn’t even read the blogs they’re supposed to be monitoring and contacting.
• And finally, not to sound imperious, but remember that you need me as much (or more) than I need you – or the free samples or the event invites. I never expect special treatment, but I do expect that PR people will do their job (not make me do it for them), be on the ball, be professional and know enough about my site and my writing to tailor their correspondence to be appropriate.