PR pro’s confession: ‘I’ve pitched utter, complete crap’

I’m about to confess something that I suspect every PR professional is guilty of: I have pitched crap to the media.

That’s right. I’ve pitched utter, complete crap that no one with a news hole the size of the front page would cover.

You can admit if you have, too. I won’t judge.

Sometimes, we have no say in what the client or company leader wants. Other times, we don’t have the best material to work with and have to make lemonade out of lemons.

I got to thinking about this when fellow blogger Josh Brett wrote about the sins of marketing, communications, and public relations last year.

While I articulated an additional “sin” in the comments discussion, I found myself holding back from saying what I really thought was sinful: wasting the media’s time and client’s budget by pitching crap.

This is a subjective observation, of course, based on my previous PR work experience. But I believe it has happened to more PR folks than they care to admit.