office(r) dead? I


Is the press


Finding someone to talk about their own press release can prove laborious. Sophie Atherton takes a look down the generic email black hole


t should have been an easy piece to write: a feature that came off the back of a press release. The release itself wasn’t as detailed as it might have been but, as it was about something the business clearly wanted to


promote, a few follow-up questions would surely be welcome. I sent my queries to the generic press office email address


the release had come from. I gave it the subject line ‘time sensitive media enquiry’. I had a bit of time before my editor wanted copy so ‘urgent’ felt like overkill, but I mentioned my deadline in the email itself. I made a start on the feature and left gaps for the


info I’d requested. It would be easy enough to drop it in later and then I’d be able to file my piece. A few days went by, and I’d heard nothing. I


sent a follow-up email, adding that I now needed the info asap as my deadline was approaching. I let my editor know I was struggling. Mercifully, he was able to be flexible about when he needed my copy.


The deadline I’d given in my enquiry came


and went. Still no word of reply. I started looking for the press office phone number, berating myself for not calling in the first place. Then I remembered: there was no name or number on the press release.


I found a head office number, called and


asked to be put through to the press office. I was told the person I needed was out of the office. There was no offer to take a message, no enquiry as to whether it was urgent, just ‘sorry they aren’t in’. I started to wonder why they’d sent the press release if they didn’t want to deal with follow-up queries. I genuinely try not to fall into ‘it wasn’t like this in the old days’ too often but I was both flabbergasted and exasperated at this. Earlier in my career, I had spent five years as a media officer. If a journalist called the regional office of the RSPB for which I worked and I was out, they were put


10 | theJournalist


through to a colleague who’d been briefed on handling press calls or offered my mobile number. They would never merely have been told I was out – and I never sent out a press release without my contact details on. I realise that times have changed. My press office days were before social media really took off. My work focused on sending press releases, fielding follow-up calls and reactive media enquiries, providing comment or arranging interviews and securing and writing regular monthly features in glossy county magazines.


Overtaken by digital I’m not sure my old role exists now. Based on a scan of recent job ads, all I tend to see being recruited are content officers and digital marketing executives, as opposed to press or media officers. I suppose answering journalist requests from someone writing for a monthly magazine is a lower priority than populating a minute-by-


minute social media feed and engaging with those who post on them. Back to my tale of woe. Eventually, I got hold of a


mobile number for what turned out not to be a press officer but a web and PR manager. I was polite but I let on how I’d been trying to


contact them for some time. Their extremely nonchalant explanation was that the company firewall often meant emails didn’t get through. “But you’re running a press office!” I wanted to shout. Later that same day – some 18 days after my


first attempt to contact them – I got an email containing a partial response to my queries and some rather poor photographs. I was about to reply, Oliver-style, asking for more, but I couldn’t imagine I’d get a much better response than he did, so I decided to give


up. I made the best use of what they had sent and felt very glad I knew my editor in person and that he was an understanding chap. If this were a one-off scenario, I wouldn’t be writing this. Yet in the past few years, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve got no response from emailing press offices – and then found


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