Anil Dash has a smart, funny post about the horrors of misguided PR people pitching bloggers. Classic Anil - dry, charming, well-written, and absolutely right on the money. All PR people with their sights set on the blogosphere should read, digest and act on Anil's advice. Hell - even if you're just pitching a regular reporter, his post is still sound counsel.

Meanwhile, Russell Beattie - whose blog I've been enjoying for some years - responds to Anil's comments with a somewhat over the top rant against the PR industry as a whole. He's not wrong, but I don't think he's being entirely fair either. It's a sweeping generalisation and, like absolutely all generalisations, it's inherently flawed (yes, there's a joke in that, btw. Not a very good one, but it's Friday afternoon...)

In a post titled "PR People Are Morons", Russell says: "now that people in Public Relations have "discovered" blogging, I'm seeing a notable downward trend in the quality of the discussions online."

It's harsh. A lot of what he says is absolutely right, of course. I see no cause for debate in the point he's making. But the casual dismissal of the entire PR industry hurts.

Here's the comment I've just left at Russell's blog.

There are flacks and there are flacks.

That the PR business has more than its fair share of clueless mouth-breathers is pretty much a universally acknowledged truth.

And yes, it's insanely irritating and depressing to note that so many of these idiots and the dinosaur agencies that employ them have woken up to the existence of the blogosphere and are now trying to figure out how to "game" it.

But to suggest that the PR industry's discovery of blogging has directly led to "a notable downward trend in the quality of the discussions online" is hyperbolic to say the least.

I am a PR guy. I'm also a blogger. Have been since March 2001. That's a long time in blog years, but it's not even as long as many of the other PR people out there have been blogging. Personally, I don’t think I’m responsible for adversely impacting the signal-to-noise ratio. Nor do I think many of my colleagues in the PR world deserve such calumny either – people like Jeneane Sessum (blogging since November 2001), Steve Rubel, Constantin Basturea, Renee Blodgett. All fine, interesting, clueful writers – all people who “get it”. All, incidentally, PR people.

But lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear: I’m not upset by your post. In fact, I agree with you in most respects.

Let me say it again – there are an awful, awful lot of horribly bad PR people out there doing jaw-droppingly stupid things to try to get some kind of attention from the blogosphere. Wankers, without exception. Pitching blogs and bloggers, in particular, is a just a ridiculously bad idea (an issue I ranted on at considerable length, here).

Just, please: don’t think we’re all like that.