Couples Counseling

One more press person's gripe. Some publicists ask for a return receipt when their e-mail is read, or for a receipt when it's deleted. My e-mail software always asks me if I want to send these receipts, and I always say no. It's harmless, but I feel a little spied on. And from the publicist's point of view, why do this? To prove to your clients that your e-mail actually was read? To find out which recipients pay attention to you?

I'd dissent on the 10 minute thing. Media people can be under a lot of pressure to get an interview, especially if it's with a huge star who's written about in all the big places. So they're not in a position to say, "oh, forget it" when the circumstances of an interview aren't constructive.

And if the interview conditions make it impossible to find anything out -- and if there's generally a PR operation radically more concerned with hype than truth (much more than usual, in other words -- it's fair game to say so. Dudamel, for all his power of a conductor, seems (from everything I've heard -- I haven't done any stories on him) -- to be in the center of a press flurry like this. Interviews, even with major critics, are limited to just a few minutes, and he says the same things at every interview. Much more so than other stars. That in itself is a story, and it's reasonable for media types to write it.

It's much worse in pop music, TV, movies. With _real_ celebrities, in other words. Can you imagine what it would be like if glossy magazines stated the conditions under which they got their celebrity cover stories? "The artist's publicist said who the writer had to be, and said that the artist wouldn't speak about the following subjects" [list follows, naturally including at least some of the scandals everybody wants to read about].

Pet peeve of the day: when publications/editors with whom I have been following up very carefully ignore my client in "Holiday round-up" articles.

As someone who has worked both sides of the press table, I appreciate
the difficult task each of us faces. As a publicist I dreaded the last
second call for tickets, critics who failed to show up, and those who
called for information that was right in the press release.

As an arts writer, I do wish today's PR people would get the basics
right - like the who, what, when, where in the first paragraph. And
wouldn't use Microsoft Word for their text, since many online editors
don't translate it correctly. Use plain text.

Generally speaking I find the work of performing arts publicists far
more professional than that of those who promote visual artists.

As to Opera Chic's comments on her site, sometimes you just have to go
with the most interesting material you have. And when getting the
story is more interesting than the story itself, well, there you are. I
am never bored by her site for that reason. Unlike in print, letting
your own personality shine is quite ok online, IMHO.

press releases, listings or audition notices for that matter sent out as jpegs or tiff files so you can't copy and past the information. has to be at the top of our list of most hated communications!

Let me just say that, as a former arts journalist (though I may resuscitate my career in the new year - I am Hamlet-like in my indecision), I think the pieces about how difficult it is to get an interview are boring cop-outs. "The guy I'm writing about is getting a lot of media attention - including from me! So you should pay attention to him too!" Normal people do not care.

The only way that stuff is interesting is if there is something exceptional about it - e.g., "Though Dudamel could only promise 10 minutes, in the end we talked for 45, as his impassioned outbursts regarding Venezuela's national soccer team proved too much even for a team of trained publicists to contain." And even that's kind of boring unless what the person is saying is interesting.

«...send releases under the oh-so-attention-grabbing subject line "Press Release"»

This is representative of a widespread and deep-set problem: in my experience too few professionals give their emails sensible or informative subject lines.

It's a continual gripe for me (and I'm neither a publicist, nor an arts journalist, although my work brings me in contact with both). Too often subject lines are uninformative or completely irrelevant. Or worse, the person hasn't thought about what will make the subject distinctive for the recipient (e.g. you might send only one email a year re the general subject of "program notes", but I receive and send several thousand - so you'd better be specific).

I'm eternally indebted to Microsoft for giving Outlook the functionality to edit the subject lines of messages received. But really, I shouldn't have to waste my time turning "Reminder" or "Advert" or "You'll never guess" into something meaningful and useful.

Unfortunately, when everyone around us is being thoughtless with their email subjects (the spammers do it better!), it's really no surprise that publicists are too.