Lifehack 2.0: build a wiki to blacklist PR spammers

Lifehacker writer/blogger/editor Gina Trapani has taken the art of blacklisting PR flacks to a new level with a wiki listing of PR firms that spam bloggers.

The idea of publicly shaming PR spammers first gained traction when Chris Anderson first chided “lazy flacks” on his blog. (See my post from last November, PR flacks and the new media: a cautionary, not-so-long tale.) But Trapani has made blacklisting a more social act, inviting other bloggers to add their favorite PR offenders to her wiki.

All of this has led Todd Defren of Shift Communications (one of the firms on Trapani’s blacklist) to post an open letter to Gina Trapani on his blog, appealing for her to remove his firm from her list. “If you can dig up the offending email from a shiftcomm.com address,” he writes, “I will publish and critique it on my blog, and will include any of your personal comments as well. We’ll gladly fall on the sword if it’s in service to improving our agency and our profession as a whole.” (Via @flackette.)

Author: andrewcareaga

Former higher ed PR and marketing guy at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) now focused on freelance writing and editing and creative writing, fiction and non-fiction. View all posts by andrewcareaga