Job description overview:

As the agency's PR Ombudsman you will be responsible for monitoring all agency communications between agency staff and the media. You will also be the point person for resolving any issues that surface as a result of the agency's media relations activities. The office of the Ombudsman is completely independent of agency staff and management, reporting directly to the President and, through the President, to the agency's Board of Directors.

Responsibilities:

• Quality assurance - Create an agency standard for all press releases and pitches
• Manage a QA team and monitor all incoming/outgoing communications with the media
• Train account staff on media relations best practices
• Resolve complaints and disputes between account staff and journalists and bloggers
• Develop the agency's first Code of Conduct for interacting with the media

Startups are tough on the spirit. I've been working on Newsvetter for about a year. I started developing the prototype about this time last year and soft launched in Nov. of 2007. Emotional ups and downs go with the territory and you quickly realize how important incremental successes can be for your state of mind. So, it's always a pleasure to hear from people who have used Newsvetter and found the process valuable. 

After seeing a post about Newsvetter on PRNewser one user recently decided she would give Newsvetter a test drive. As I do with most users, I solicited feedback about her experience. Her testimonial is posted below (with permission):

Sucky press releases and the PR people who write them are getting some great coverage in the mainstream media and especially on blogs like BadPitchBlog and Gawker.

For example, Wyndstorm, "the ideas to revenue social media company," sent a dreadful press release to one blogger who in return wrote a post titled: "This Press Release Sucks. Re-write It to Win a Seth Godin Action Figure." I normally would have never seen this press release, but I follow this blogger on Twitter, as do 1300 other people. The blog post also accrued some 15 comments. Some of the those who commented actually visited the Wyndstorm site (like me) in an attempt to learn more about the product in order to rewrite the press release. Why so much effort over a bad press release?

Journalists and bloggers hate PR lists and for good reason. These lists actively aid in the delivery of poor quality and irrelevant information. While the PR industry continues to debate why this is happening and who is to blame, journalists and bloggers can take a small step that will end the squabbling once and for all.

Create your own media profile on Newsvetter and share the personalized URL with all the PR people you work with. Place the URL in your Twitter bio, your signature file or place it on your web site, or on a masthead etc.

What do you get in return? Control over your own profile. If you change jobs, beats, or needs you can do it instaneously via Newsvetter. You also get higher quality and more relevant information from PR people. Each PR person must go through a two step vetting process designed to cut through the BS and demonstrate why you and your publication should care. Nervous? Take a look at the brave souls who have already created profiles on the site:

Want to add your name to the list? Simply register and fill out the specified fields.

Over the past two weeks, I've been getting a steady flow of new users. Just wanted to say welcome and provide a few tips for getting the most out of Newsvetter:

Media: Use your public profile and actively share it with people who commonly supply you with news tips. Place the contact badge (see image on right) on your website or blog or provide a link to your Newsvetter profile on your About page or in your email signature. Why do this? This is your first line of defense when dealing with PR people. Your profile tells them something about you, your publication, and what you cover. It's a profile that you control and update. The more visible this is to PR people the more PR people will use it rather than media list brokers where accuracy can be iffy. Best of all, it provides a mechanism for vetting pitches. Quality is important to you, Newsvetter's vetting process establishes a two step process that makes sure that PR people have done their homework. Does it guarantee quality? No. But if a pitch is subpar you can rate it and provide a comment which becomes part of their permanent record on Newsvetter. Think of it as an eBay feedback score for sellers.

Journalists and bloggers put on their bag gloves again this week for another round of PR jabs and uppercuts. Brian Solis of FutureWorks posted a lengthy public apology/explanation on behalf of one of his employees who got called to the carpet by a blogger or journalist for an unsolicited pitch. Matt Haughey of A Whole Lotta Nothing offered up a some gmail tips for blocking PR people. Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker.com, took it a step further and started a wiki called prspammers which lists the domain names of offending PR companies, instructions on adding new names to this list and how to block them using gmail. Todd Defren posted an open letter to Gina criticizing the list and explaining that PR people are human after all and make mistakes.

Why does this keep happening? Has anything really changed since Chris Anderson of Wired publicly condemned PR people last November? Each time PR people get publicly outed for shoddy work, the great PR thought leaders enter the sweat lodge for yet another round of soul searching. And each time they exit with the same remedies (be transprarent, do your homework, don't spam, build relationships, we are only human etc). Something isn't working and the solution is not more Pitching 101 tips.

Imagine being sandblasted by PR Newswire: According to their website: Number of releases = 3,220,093. Number of releases viewed = 1,545,823.

I've been reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. He's a journalist in the U.K. who created quite a name for himself by criticizing journalist practices on Fleet Street - chief among them the routine recycling of unchecked second-hand material at some of the top media outlets in the U.K. I'm not that far into the book, but I thought I would share a couple of interesting excerpts (before I forget).

Davies commissioned researchers at Cardiff University to analyze news stories at four of the top daily newspapers (The Times, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph). These researchers "chose two random weeks and analyzed every single domestic news story put out by these outlets, a total of 2,207 pieces."

I'm still reeling from the realization that press releases often rank higher in search results than content from professional journalists and bloggers. There's an interesting article about how "news releases increasingly aren't intended to announce "news" at all. Instead, marketers are more and more often employing online press releases to increase their company or product's visibility directly with consumers, as well as to beef up SEO."

So how does this work. To understand it better, I asked one of our local SEO experts, Todd Mintz, Internet Marketing Director for S.R. Clarke and a board member of SEMpdx, Portland's Search Engine Marketing Association.

I've pasted our email exchange below as a Q&A:

Anyone who has worked in PR knows that writing a press release for a company or client can be a lot like playing Mad Libs. You create a story outline filled with blanks and hope you can fill them in before the deadline. One of the more asinine practices is creating fake quotes for company execs and spokespeople. Why press releases need these quotes is a complete mystery. In most cases they say nothing, add nothing, and lessen the credibility of the news because nobody believes them. Yet they continue to be used. Below is one case where eDrugstore.md or their PR agency telegraphed that "asinine" practice publicly: [Note: As of today (updated 5/10!), the press release has not been changed and thanks to SEO appears at the top of search engine results]