CorpComms Magazine

I don't mind unsolicited e-mails. Really, I don't. I'm happy in my inbox. Feel free to contact me this way. Unsolicited phone calls, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. Like most financial journalists - and, I'm sure, many PRs - I turn on my computer every morning and purge my system of almost everything that has been sent to me since I was last in the office.

I hold the delete key down - first, over the hardcore spam that has managed to sneak through the filtering system, and then over the stack of obscure press releases about companies, products and markets I would never dream of writing about. I ignore overexcited pitches about the billions of pounds the economy will lose unless middle ranking IT executives upgrade their 'back office' computer systems. And I don't open the invites to two-day conferences on the inherent risks involved in investing in wine futures. I see no reason why I should complain about receiving these mails, however. IT executives surely have their uses. I imagine that plenty of care needs to be taken before punting on five-year-old Burgundy. And somewhere, someone may have just found their day's lead story. We all have a job to do, and whoever it was that put together these missives would have taken far longer in their preparation than it takes me to find the delete key.

Hidden treasure

Besides all this, there is something in it for me. There is always the chance that tucked away in one of these apparently mundane notices will be that gem of a story no one else has bothered to look for. While working at one newspaper, for instance, I absentmindedly followed up a 'people' release about what appeared to be the routine appointment of a new trader at a well-known investment bank.

Two calls later, the individual concerned was revealed to be just one member of a 30-strong team of high-rolling financial big shots who had been poached from an arch-rival investment house. They managed to negotiate eye-watering salary and bonus deals as part of their move, and we suddenly had a real story on our hands. The copy that eventually materialises from these finds, of course, is not quite what their writers initially intended, but in terms of news judgment that's not the point. I've worked with journalists on daily and Sunday newspapers who, without fail, check every one of their e-mails before deciding whether or not to 'send to trash'. Never were they far away from the week's front page or the day's big business story.

All of this is obviously an unintended consequence for PRs, as are the more bizarre or accidentally revealing press notices that find themselves regularly featured in City diaries. In my experience, however, the majority of PRs - particularly those operating in specialist areas - take these things on the chin and see them as part of the game.

Moreover, adopting the blanket-bomb approach to sending out e-mails must still have a justifiably rewarding response rate. Given that few PR executives can be ignorant of the 'targeted marketing' approach or the concept of 'know your audience', I can't quite believe they would carry on doing it otherwise.

Don't call us, we'll call you

While I'd like to think that I am reasonably relaxed about the continuous e-mail bombardment that can send some journalists into purple-clouded rages, the same does not apply to other areas - specifically, the telephone. Imagine the scene. It's 6.59 am on a busy weekday. In just one minute, details of the vast bulk of the day's big City news - and the backbone of the next day's business pages - will be unleashed on an expectant stock market.

It's not e-mail that counts then, it's the phone. I've only got one of those - aside from my mobile - and I'd really rather the line wasn't blocked with exchanges that could be dealt with using a less crucial medium. In the early hours of a news story, picking up the phone marks the beginning of real human contact, the closest you'll get to looking a moving story in the eye. Facts need to be checked, and interviews chased; calls have to be made on what that e-mailed press release, inadvertently or otherwise, neglected to say. The last thing you need at this time, then, is a call to check you've received an e-mail that both of you know you would have junked almost without reading. At times like this, those pro forma e-mails go firmly onto the back burner. This is when those PRs that know only how to sell a one-way story quickly fall away and lose out to proper news. The point here is that e-mailing journalists with story pitches is perfectly acceptable PR, but it can only ever be the beginning of any story. The real test of PR mettle, I would argue, is the ability to do the next bit - the skill of dealing with telephone calls with journalists quickly and accurately, particularly if they involve a story a writer is preparing for the internet. After all, not immediately able to comment' is a phrase no longer used just by the newswires and is extremely unedifying for both sides.

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