PR. O, Lord. PR.

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Thanks to Gawker, we've learned of a new high bar for PR scum. Evidently, Sarah Lockard blogger on "CEO" of AroundMainLine.com has pretty much declared that she is a PR whore and has no problem with that.

PR whore blogger, CEO, beggar Sarah Lockard

In exchange for feeding her family on Christmas Eve for free, she will actually write a blog post that 560 people will see. Damn.

I kind of admire her brazen self-promotion. It's a question, though, of who is really getting the PR value. Public Relations as a concept is pretty shaky on any normal day. Throw open the faucet on bloggers who have no concept of best practices and it goes to hell pretty damn quickly.


I've written previously on how the web has been contorted into a dystopian PR fantasyland where EVERYTHING IS GREAT! and where there's not a critical thought to be found. PR has really become an unfettered noxious weed in content publishing that is completely liberated from fact, judgement and reality. Yelp!, TripAdvisor and even social networks were born of great concepts. The execution has created a completely bastardized hybrid of deceit, delusion and desire.

I think our Sarah Lockard is catching so much heat because she said what we all knew. While reprehensible by any measure of journalism, PR or professional communications on any level, she has formalized a practice that is going on all around us. It's an indicator of our feral society. Banks donate to campaigns which in turn, ease regulation. Reseller sites are held hostage by MAPs. Libel suit? Contract cancellation? Too bad, you didn't play by "their" rules as listed in the TOS. You've read of the site (kleargear.com) that "fined" a customer for writing a negative review.

This, reader, is not what content marketing is about. It's about an honest and informed communication. It seems that companies who use social media for promotion do not appreciate the fact that the reliance on social media has potentially negative results; it is a double-edged sword that can also reduce as well as enhance. I once worked for a company that was so disturbed by a (accurate) negative review that they searched their client list to determine who it was. They tried to bribe them with free merchandise so that they would retract their reviews. The reviewer refused and published that fact. Much hand wringing followed.

I'm sure this is not the only instance. The effect is to devalue all communication, especially social networks.

With no further delay, I present the actual email from our bestest new friend, Ms. Sarah Lockard:

photo: Gawker