Rafe Needleman, author of ProPRTips.com (the inspiration for this blog), has announced that the Pro PR Tips book is now available through his sponsor, ITDatabase. That company, which makes a directory and tracking service of writers and topics for PR people, is giving away the book to qualified people in the tech PR industry. If you’d like to get on the list to receive the book, sign up here.
Also: See Pro PR Tips in the New York Times: Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley.
…and there are bad news days. Be prepared for both.
I know many reporters don’t write the heads for their stories, but man, they should. Who knows the story better?
…whenever possible. There’s a time and a place where you should consider using, but certainly don’t default. At worst it can be seen as lazy/sloppy reporting, at best it allows skepticism to run wild while others second guess how accurate your source is.
A good read on when and how to use confidential sources is You Didn’t Hear This From Me, originally developed as part of the American Press Institute’s seminar, “Our Readers Are Watching,” and posted at No Train, No Gain.
Seriously, try to be professional. There’s no reason for going totally over the top with a PR/marketing person, especially in a public way (remember Tip #20: Don’t air your dirty laundry).
Check out this Twitter exchange between (soon to be former) National Post reporter David George-Cosh and April Dunford, founder of Rocket Launch Marketing. As David might say: un-fu@k!ng-believable. See full MediaStyle report here (by Ian Capstick).
Interestingly, Mr. George-Cosh seems to have deleted the tweets from his account, but they’ve been preserved below and over at MediaStyle.
Thanks to @VaENew and @NicolePRexec for pointing out this Reporter tip!
Update: The National Post published an apology over the incident, and April Dunford blogged about the experience as well. I certainly agree with Aril’s “apologize and move on” point; if there was an immediate apology I think the whole incident wouldn’t have had enough steam to get off of the ground.
If the White House can liveblog from an event, you can too. Why should I wait until tomorrow (or even later that afternoon) for your news?
Via Thomas Lee:
Contrary to what you may think, we’re not out to dupe you. There are some reporters out there that that seem to truly believe every PR pitch they receive is a ruse. If we don’t have an existing relationship, it’s understandable that you’ll be more thorough in vetting a pitch, but realize that trying to pull one over on you is not in our best interest or the best interest of our clients. Our reputation in this business is all we have.
Following up on Tip #46 (if you create something cool, extend and protect it).
The Washington Post’s Chief Technology Officer, Yuvi Kochar, started following me on Twitter and I’ve turned over @WhoRunsGov to him. It doesn’t look like editorial team has done anything yet with the Twitter ID, but I hope they use it to extend the reach of WhoRunsGov.com.
On a related note:
Scientist, gov2.0 evangelist and Mashable author Mark Drapeau earlier this week touted The Rise of the Goverati in his first column for Read Write Web. Mark (a.k.a. Cheeky_Geeky on Twitter) had been tossing the term out a bit on Twitter a few weeks before his WWR article. The article has achieved some popularity, with over 500 Google links in a day and “#goverati” appearing as a top 10 Twitter search for a bit.
It appears an enterprising person (not Mark) went out and grabbed up both Goverati.com (anonymously on Jan. 23 via GoDaddy and Domains by Proxy) and the Goverati ID on Twitter. Ironically, given Drapeau strongly believes the goverati should be champions of transparency in government, both Goverati.com and @Goverati currently play off the secretive society of the Illuminati.
I’m sure the person(s) behind Goverati.com will out themselves soon enough, but I thought it was another example that supported my earlier tip. And Mark, time to bookmark my blog maybe? 
The Associated Press Stylebook (or other similar guide) is a must have resource for any reporter. A stylebook will help you avoid using “Ken.” to abbreviate Kentucky, showing you the accepted abbreviation is “Ky.” The reporter from The Hill must have misplaced his today.
(Thanks to Steve Field, author of The D-Ring blog for pointing this out).
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