PR Corner: Is it good to dis another journalist in your pitch?

This morning the ever-busy transom included a blast note from a PR person I don’t believe I’ve ever heard from before. It included an attachment — an article from another publication.

And it began: “The attached is worth noting, despite the fact that the reporter chose to disregard all the research [we] shared with her on” etc., etc.

It continued from there to make the pitch, which had something to do with said data. (The actual subject of the pitch is beside the point for my purposes here.)

Now, as a journalist, I’m not sure how excited I am supposed to be about dealing with a PR person whose pitch includes a de facto slam of some other journalist (whose byline was obviously on the attached article), distributed to an untold number of others.

It seems to imply a set of terms: If I don’t see the story exactly the way the pitch sees the story, then I’m “disregarding” the most important facts. Not only that, I’ll be labeled unprofessional, and that charge will be blasted around indiscriminately in a way that I can’t even respond to it. (I have no idea if the reporter in this case even knows about it.) So my basic reaction to this pitch was: Here’s a PR person I don’t trust.

It would be really easy for the PR person to have made the same point differently — and actually in a way that would make it more appealing for another journalist to pursue. “The attached is worth noting. One surprising angle not explored here is our research showing” etc.

No cheap shots at third parties. No implied confrontation about what the “real” story is (and that the only way it can be told is by mindlesslessly regurgitating the pitch).

Just a thought.