7 deadly media relations sins

Terrible pitching and offensive release behavior are almost as bad as gluttony, pride, wrath, lust and more. Save yourself from PR hell by avoiding these mistakes.

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Depending on which reporter you ask, PR pros can either be angels or demons.

Though the two communication-industry professions are often seen at odds with one another, potential rifts are made bigger by common, yet deadly, media relations sins.

These bad behaviors can get your pitch thrown in the garbage, make you the subject of a #PRFail tweet and ensure that you don’t see your story—or client’s name—in a headline:

1. Not providing enough information.

Journalists are up against deadlines and are often trying to complete the work meant for two or more, especially with shrinking newsrooms and a scramble for eyeballs on published content.

Don’t make their jobs harder by making them hunt down information that you could easily provide, including expert quotes, meaningful statistics and high-quality images and videos.

PR folks PLEASE pretty please learn the difference b/ween high res & low res photos!#DearPR #prfail

— Vicky Cervantes (@flvickster) January 6, 2017

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