Earlier this week Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff published a plea to PR professionals to take a stand against unprofessional practices.

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Compared to many previous rants on this issue and the shoddy practices we’re all aware of, his plea is rational and completely fair.

If you work in Public Relations, then you should passionately care about the industry’s image – and the damage caused by silly people.

The problem is that there’s so much of it.

Please note that I’m not including simple mistakes in this.  Mistakes happen, that’s why they’re called mistakes. Berating someone for a simple error makes me extremely uncomfortable, we all make them.

But unprofessional, lazy or stupid conduct should be called out.

I write posts in this blog infrequently.  It’s read even less frequently. Yet I am, through the power of online databases – and lazy PR people – inundated with irrelevant pitches every single day. I am convinced some of these databases must have a “spam anyone with a (suspected) pulse” filter.

Of course I also get the odd, relevant, well written pitch, which just makes me feel guilty that they wasted good time on me Smile.

So let’s keep calling it out and hopefully people will start to learn. Don’t hold your breath though….

Additional thought: Arthur Yann of the PRSA gets a star for responding to Josh’s post. However, although the PRSA is an organization focused on supporting its membership, something I think is very important, I do think it’s a little ironic that only members can view their Social Media Policy.

@tpemurphy

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