October is here and with record October temperatures all over Europe, it looks like autumn is delayed (hopefully winter too?). One thing that is not delayed is Black Unicorn PR’s quarterly review of pet peeves by journalists on Twitter, or X (sad, we know). It does seem that Twitter is still being used by journalists for pet peeving, so at least we’re happy it’s useful for something.
They say that the wheel shouldn’t be reinvented, but we see the same pet peeves appearing over and over again, meaning that we do need to share the same insights and lessons over and over again. And guess what, we won’t tire until there is no single pet peeve left (this could take a while)!
Without further ado, we bring to you Pet Peeves Q3 of 2023!
Points for moving away from “disrupting”, “Uber for X” and bringing in seismology terms, but try to be original, not just copy what everyone is using lately.
We don’t know who exactly needs to hear this, but if you are pitching “news” you should always allow enough time for journalists to check their email, read the pitch/information and be able to type something up. If not, there won’t be enough time and you’ll complicate their lives.
We were about to rebrand to Pink Barbie Comms before seeing this tweet. Yeah, OK, Barbie was a blockbuster, but we’re not quite living in Barbieland yet.
If your founder is a white dude, don’t pitch Marija. Also, read journalists’ profiles and preferences.
Today’s random pitch of the day. Spray and pray at its finest!
Requesting backlinks is a thing, it seems. But so is maintaining relationships with journalists. So, burn bridges at your discretion!
This pro tip is actually a common sense tip. Why would you attach, link, post or fax, when you can paste into the body of the email?
Did someone forget the meaning of exclusive? Don’t pitch exclusives to more than one journalist at a time! Don’t expect to get two simultaneous exclusives (actually, that’s a logical impossibility).
I actually don’t know what exactly is going on here. So, please just communicate in a clear way.
Your spokesperson should be ready for any questions coming up in the interview. Yes, it’d be nice to know the questions in advance, but it’s not to be expected that you will get them! Plus, shouldn’t the interview be honest, transparent and genuine?
Helping journalists with good photography means helping yourself!
Personalising a pitch also means checking if the reporter is likely to be at their company’s flagship yearly event. More specific tip – don’t pitch TechCrunch journos just before / during TechCrunch Disrupt.
Sorry, but what is this trend of adding a generic role description ahead of the (last!) name of a journalist? What kind of bots are behind this? If you’re going to semi-automate, at least understand how to do it for the English speaking world. But seriously, don’t semi-automate.
Zero effort. No, less than zero. Also, a super net negative in terms of how a journalist will see you. Also, wtf?
Our advice to you is [tailor depending on tweet]. Just kidding! Dude, what’s the point of templating that email? Might as well write the whole thing from scratch! But if you do, make sure there’s a REAL REASON to get in touch!
Sometimes, a journalist may leave you hanging. PR pros want definitive answers, and they will seek to get them in different ways. If it’s urgent, if it’s warranted, do get in touch in different ways(sorry Mike). If it’s random, and intrusive for no reason, don’t!
Check out our other pet peeves blog posts!
