Peter Shankman has launched an interesting service of sorts called Help a Reporter, which actually stems from his hugely popular Facebook group If I can help a reporter out, I will. On the new homepage Peter likens the service to ProfNet which in my opinion misses the mark in a good way. ProfNet is a paid service that puts PR people, journalists, and experts together based on similar topics of interest. However, it’s also very clearly a sales tool for both the PR practitioners and the experts. Based on its roots in social media, Help a Reporter, has the opportunity to be much more. It has the opportunity to be more alumni association than vendor – a network of people with common backgrounds who have a vested interest in helping one another. Perhaps that’s why Peter goes on to say:
This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.
In other words, Peter is asking that you don’t take his community and turn it into Second Life… A great concept that blossomed into community and was subsequently deserted when the axles broke on the marketers’ bandwagon.
The question remains to be answered, do we as practitioners have that sort of self control? Or perhaps more pertinently, do we have the presence of mind to recognize when we are helping a reporter versus when we are loading our pitch into a shotgun and sawing the end off? The future of PR is returning to relationships (as opt-in technologies like RSS take over from email, the ultimate sawed-off shotgun), and Help a Reporter is the start of a great community as long as we treat it as just that: community.
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