From time to time, I’ve been reviewing press releases and pitches sent to a reporter/blogger for a major Oregon daily. At one point she received several press releases that were directed at her old beat (a subject she had not covered for two years!). Using the press release, I was able to track it down to a PR person who used BurrellsLuce, a company that, among other PR services, maintains a list of media contacts. She had sent the release to over 10,000 people based on the list provided by the company. I asked a sales rep at BurrellsLuce about how they maintain the accuracy of their lists:

“Our research team makes hundreds of updates to the database each day resulting in the most current contact information - so you get your press release into the right hands.” The sales rep also mentioned that if a customer creates a custom media list using their database, BurrellsLuce will go in and verify that the list is accurate.

In this case it's not clear who didn't double check the list for accuracy, but I wonder what portion of the misdirected and irrelevant press releases that end up in reporters' inboxes are a result of this. In addition, most journalists just delete the offending press release/pitch letting the cycle continue. Tracking down this one press release was a time consuming task that took several phone calls over several days.

Perhaps yet another reason for reporters to create their own public profiles???