Bad PR On a Big Stage

By: Arment Dietrich | February 4, 2008 |

Blog written by Tom Short

Time after time media outlets that depend on PR firms to deliver the breaking news are turned away by PR professionals that don’t practice PR in the correct way. With the Super Bowl this past weekend there are a number of media outlets such as CNBC, where Darren Rovell received a news release that was issued by 5WPR stating Weatherproof Garment Company was going to air the shortest commercial in the history of commercials. The commercial was going to last for two seconds of air time during the Super Bowl. The question begs, how do you come up with an extra two seconds of air time that didn’t get used? After 5WPR distributed the news release to multiple outlets, CNBC and others ran the story. Two hours after the story was already in process, 5WPR sent an email on behalf of Weatherproof Garment Company explaining they were not able to get the time slot for the ad.

Why do PR professionals continue to give our profession a bad reputation? We need to start getting our facts straight, if in fact a story or commercial in this case is even going to happen before we publicize to the media. When PR firms are developing a news release or articles, the documents need to be client ready before you send them off. 5WPR sent the news release out about the commercial spot for Weatherproof Garment Company and spelled commercial wrong in the title of the release! On top of producing faulty information, the release obviously did not go through a thoughtful or time consuming editing process. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot when instances like this happen. PR firms who believe in not spinning the media need to not spin the media themselves!