A Public Relations Response to Joyce Hooi
PUBLISHED May 10th, 2015 10:00 pm | UPDATED June 29th, 2020 03:12 pm
After reading the hoopla and many responses about a certain media’s insulting of basically the entire Public Relations and Communications industry in Singapore, we were a little perturbed. Seems a bit daft to insult the people who are essentially feeding you your material, no?
Anyway, a good friend of ours who works in Public Relations sent this to us, and in the interests of fairness, here’s the other side of the coin; the PR’s response to Miss Ann Thrope’s The 10 things I have always wanted to say to PR folks
7 things I’ve always wanted to ask journalists as a Public Relations professional:
- Last time I checked your face looked different, like you were a man. Who are you, sorry?
- You never told me you got a demotion to intern. I hope as a wine writer (for example), you could at least know the difference between a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Sauvignon Blanc.
- I thought it was gonna be just you?! I didn’t know you were bringing a date, and a daughter and your cousin.. and the babysitter. All good. Plenty of Dom and caviar to go around for everyone.
- You told me there wasn’t an angle which is understandable. Just remember I’m always here to give you 16 possible ones and write all 16 potential articles for you just in case you are too lazy to actually do any journalism yourself. I totally understand though, Swensens was having a 25 cents ice cream promotion for one hour after all. No brainer.
- I get that last minute ‘something came up’ literally in the last 30 minutes but I just want you to know I put my blood, sweat and tears into making that place card for you. I have feelings too and it’s like the ultimate stand up. Rejection to the max. How can I trust you again? Ever?
- I respect that you are busy and you don’t want to be disturbed but can’t you just be straight up and say that instead of leading me on, getting my hopes up then have it all come crashing down when you finally reject me? If you’re not interested just say it so I can move on with my life… And my pitch.
- I know it’s 101 not to ask you for a copy of the coverage but can I just ask that you let us know when exactly to expect the good word? Yes we subscribe to all 150 publications and papers and everything in between as well as listen to the radio from 5am to 11pm everyday through ear pieces but there is that chance that we missed it because we had to use the bathroom and the ear piece ran out of battery and the office dog ate the paper. If you could kindly give us the heads up we promise to stop hassling. Unless the dog ate it of course.
Editor’s note:
On behalf of City Nomads, I just want to say that having been on both sides, there are good and bad in every industry. I would personally like to see less ‘copy-paste-press release’ articles from other journalists or publications (I won’t mention names, but us City Nomads are very proud of the fact that we NEVER do this. Period.). Dear PR & Coms people, you can be a bit ‘keen’ sometimes and I’m sorry if we’re ever dismissive or rude, we honestly try not to be, and like you guys, we work until the early hours doing what we do.
Peace out. Chief Nomad.
Cover image from Thesidenoteblog.wordpress.com
