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6.9.06

The ups and downs of PR and journalism

Passionate’s blog which raised the question are journalists jealous of PR people? has raised the hackles of Getting Ink who came back with the following witty response:
Here's ten reasons why we're glad we don't work in PR.
1. Staff at one London PR agency start work at 8am and take turns manning reception. Builds team spirit or somesuch, apparently.
2. One PR agency we visited has painted its walls a particularly vivid shade of orange because a management consultant told them it promoted creativity. Imagine looking at that with a hangover.
3. You have to wear black. Is it, like, some kind of uniform?
4. You have to wear suits. We wear jeans and scruffy shirts and pretend it's a ploy to put your clients off balance. Really, it's because we didn't do our laundry last night and this was the only thing that was clean.
5. We get to leave PR parties when the free beer runs out. You have to stay and talk to your clients all night.
6. If you work on the Casio account, you can't wear your lovely Tag watch.
7. You have to do things like go to 'brainstorm' meetings or 'imagineering' sessions. We go to the pub.
8. On press trips, we get to sneak out of the press conference and go shopping while you have to sit at the front and look keen.
9. One PR agency we know of has a formal policy forbidding staff from 'socialising' with rival agencies. On most newspapers, illicit screwing (of one sort of another) of the competition is virtually staff policy.
10. Finally, as a journalist when all else fails, you can still tell someone to f*ck off. As a PR, we don't think this is encouraged.


Ah, the joys of list journalism.
I don’t think Linda said journalists are jealous of PRs did she? Anyway here's ten reasons why I’m glad I don’t work in newspapers anymore.
1. Thank God, no more ‘death knocks’ – “I know you’re son’s barely cold in the mortuary but can we have a picture please?
2. No more court reporting
3. No more city council meetings to attend
4. No more corduroy.
5. No more tedious press conferences where cheap wine is served up. Can anyone remember back to the days when they used to hand our cigarettes as well?
6. No more worrying about deadlines – I don’t need a watch.
7. No more editorial conferences listening to the woman’s editor talking about top ten tips to lose weight.
8. No more being sent on press trips by my editor to Norway – most expensive booze in the world.
9. No more having to talk to people you don’t want. Incidentally we run an annual quiz with rival agencies.
10. And I really don’t like telling people to f*ck off anyway whatever the circumstances.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ian, I love your list! But I didn't pay enough attention while number 7 was under way.

The original post from Forward Blog that sparked my posting can be found here:

http://www.forward-moving.com/blog/2006/08/14/proud-of-pr/