Business Insight Zone

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired, has thrown down the gauntlet to the p.r. spammers who lard his inbox with unwanted and ill-aimed releases. And he’s not being abstract about it.

Sorry PR people: you’re blocked

I’ve had it. I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn’t spam [...], it’s PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they’re pitching. [...]

Everything else gets banned on first abuse. The following is just the last month’s list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list. [...]

There is no getting off this list. If you’re on it and have something appropriate to say to me, use a different email address.

He then goes on to list hundreds of e-mail addresses that he has blocked because of p.r. spam. The comment thread on Chris’s blog entry now runs to more than 20,000 words, with a mixture of support and criticism for Chris’s approach. The critics say that what he’s doing is “vindictive” or “mean-spirited,” but they’re wrong. It’s punitive, yes, but not vindictive, and the distinction is critical.

In many cases, we lack power over the communication in our lives. Try as we might, we can’t stop every telemarketer from calling us. We can’t stop all the spam. We can’t stop all the junk mail. But in this case, Chris Anderson does have power, and the flacks who have bombarded him do deserve to have their noses rubbed in it. If their foolishness is not punished — in this case, by public embarrassment and by a likely increase in spam that will come from having their e-mail addresses published — how will they be made to change their ways?

Don’t get me wrong: I know and work with many stellar p.r. people. (Exhibit A.) It can be an honorable business, getting the good word out about the good things created by companies, charities, schools, and other organizations. But there’s a bad side — a depressingly bad side — to online p.r. practice. Chris Anderson has encountered this bad side ad nauseam and come at last to the point where he no longer cares to suffer in silence. It’s not a bad thing when an individual reaches the point of saying, “I have had enough of this . . .” and takes action accordingly.

So: go get ‘em, Chris!