Well, there is an editing pet peeves topic started, but I'd also like to vent about the weird things that PR agencies do. I cannot stand:

1. People who sent me an email that says, "Here is our latest release" with an attachment and no other description. Why should I have to go through the effort of detaching and opening a press release, only to find out that it has nothing to do with my industry?

2. Agencies who paste my name, along with every one of my competitors, into the To: field of the email.

3. People who call me and say, "I sent you a release a week or two ago. Did you get it?"

For the past few years, I've had to start telling PR reps that I do not take phone calls to confirm that I received their releases. It's a waste of my time, and I'm not contributing to their billable hours.

It has worked for the most part. There are a few who haven't gotten the message. I generally ask them nicely twice. I have had to contact a company about its PR firm's obnoxiousness before.

My number one pet peve:

PR reps who act as a go-between in setting up an interview, then arrange and participate in a conference call.

Tod,

IMNSHO, it depends on the manner of the rep. If they set everything up and then sit there and take notes, great. If they participate, that gets on my nerves.

Here's one for you ... pr reps asking to review an article before it's published, "you know, just to make sure everything's correct," which as we know really means "you know, just to make sure I can put a spin on whatever you're writing about my company/client."

Long ago, I instituted a monthly e-mail newsletter to send to PR and marketing types, as a way to head off phone calls and provide the information they always ask about. This newsletter goes out to about 2,500 PR and marketing people, and includes the next issue's editorial topics (we publish vendor-contributed articles and new product announcements). It also includes tips on getting published and the submission guidelines, with links to relevant information. This has been hugely successful, but we still get the occasional call from a PR flunky, doing her/his job following up on e-mails, or from those who are not on my distribution list (they are then added). It's a little extra work on my end every month but saves me untold time on the phone answering the same questions over and over again.