Re: UKNM: 'placing'

[Mike Bracken]

>With regard to 'placing', I would say this refers to the art of persuading

>journalists to write about something they would normally not cover - either

>a 'weak' story or several stories on the same subject - ie a pretty blatant

>plug.


Exactly. Couldn't agree more. This, for me, is where good PR and marketing

people earn their corn.


I've always felt that this argument exposes the one-way nature of

PR/marketing pitching/placing, especially in the online area. When a story

is picked up on, the agency, often rightly, take the praise, regardless of

whether they merit it.


Yet what happens when an article is written because the journalist disagreed

with the line presented by an agency, or exposed a flaw in the line given by

a company due to an agency's inability to communicate the content. I know

this happens a lot in IT PR, as Alex rightly pointed out, because the

subject matter is often very complex and difficult to summarise.


In these cases, is this 'unplacing' or 'misplacing'?