Unless you have shut off your Twitter feed lately, you have probably heard of Robert Scoble’s somewhat incendiary comments regarding the public relations industry. Mark Story takes a look inward and asks: “Do we suck?”…

Oh, of course…they DON’T all suck. Email is a communication channel that can be used well. To suggest that no use of the channel can possibly produce a positive outcome is absurd.

On the other hand, it’s worth noting that if you’re trying to pitch Robert Scoble, email probably won’t be the best approach. Heck, I still know reporters who want to get faxed. Any good PR person knows the preferences of the journalist he’s pitching and accommodates those preferences. Robert hates email, so don’t send him any.

On the other hand, email worked perfectly well for two campaigns I managed, producing only positive results, so clearly the targets of my messages did not believe all email sucks.

Alas, I suppose it depends.

I’ll address your dodge for a moment and refer to Gillmor’s suggested method of pitching. The issue is the “Non-Targeted PR Emails” and not the email itself. A well directed email is a viable practice and if you check the rolls of any major media directory you’ll see that the majority of reporters prefer it. So, once again … please try to be specific. Your broad brush tactics really do make you seem beyond ignorant of PR now, and spilling over into the downright petty.

You’re anecdotal “They all suck” doesn’t carry weight, Robert.

Now, the real issues I raised, you don’t address the contradiction of pay/meal for attention (and even play, regarding Cisco) and your trustworthiness as a citizen journalist, blogger, or whatever you call yourself these days.

You also, again with the Gillmor reference (“real tech journalist”), fail to recognize that PR practice and pitching takes place in a wider arena.

Robert, seriously, don’t you take offense when anyone broadly paints online practices like your’s as folly? useless?

Do you have a fair bone in your body, Robert? I’m sorry, but I’m beginning to believe you do not.

Again …. All I would like to see is for Robert Scoble to, with regard to his PR rants, just once — stop staring at his own tree and look at the forest. Your walled garden has a gate, Robert. Walk out of it and see the entire PR world, please. You expect everyone to visit your’s, why won’t you provide the same courtesy?

For the record, I teach the targeted approach to students. I preach about learning how each individual should be addressed — and doing so as they desire, not the scatter gun email blasts. What their PR managers do with them after they leave here, I can’t control. So, keep your broad brush generalizations about me to yourself.

Look, there’s a shark! You just jumped it.

Every time I get together with “real” journalists they complain about the pitches they get via email. They all suck. Anyone who defends them is defending the indefensible. If you want to do your clients some good figure out something else to do. I don’t really care about the food, I can pay for my own. But the way PR people go about their business really does suck.