Why do reporters hate PR pros so much?

I’ll admit even I was guilty of blaming reporters for all their harsh words, of explaining away their problems and making excuses for why what I was doing was right. And at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. It did not matter one bit the explanations I concocted in my head, because my client wasn’t getting the coverage I expected. Reporters have the last laugh, always and forever. We need them. There are very few of them that need us. It would do every PR professional some good to realize this once and for all, to understand that the annoying sales calls we get from trade shows and the like are not even remotely as frequent as the constant emails and voicemails reporters receive that they are not the least bit interested in.

Those who are new to the industry would do well to question the strategies used in the past. It seems as though what’s fundamentally wrong with PR is that no one is thinking for themselves, no one is using common sense to realize that something or everything isn’t working. It has become one giant group-think, and if history has taught us anything it’s that conformity with a head-down attitude is a direction that can only lead to poor decisions. Reporters hate PR professionals. Let’s change that. Here’s how to start: