Russell Buckley came up with a novel solution to the problem of bloggers receiving unwanted PR pitches. Bloggers would display one of three logos on their sites: Green indicates a willingness to receive pitches. Red indicates no desire to hear pitches. Yellow requires would-be pitchers learn the blogger’s policy on pitches before making contact.
Upon reading Russell’s post, I immediately thought of the "Are bloggers journalists?" dialog that’s been taking place in the blogosphere lately. It seems ridiculous for a "traditional journalist" (for lack of a better term) to have a "no PR pitches" policy. In fact, as much as journalists may sometimes hate to admit, they’re reliant on PR pitches just as PR pros are reliant on journalists. It’s a necessary, if occasionally rocky, symbiotic relationship. If bloggers truly are citizen journalists, it seems equally ridiculous for them to have a "no pitch" policy. And truthfully, I’m not sure if it’s necessary. Russell gives some good advice in the article regarding pitching to his blog (I’ll summarize): Keep it relevant, continued bad pitches will be automatically discarded, keep it short, and don’t post comment spam.
If every would-be PR pro followed these guidelines when pitching to a blog, no "pitching policy" statements would be needed.
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