PR and the first amendment and keeping your job

Chris Anderson has had enough: Sorry PR people: you're blocked. He's calling out all the PR flaks spammers, who, in the name of "it's my job," spammed him.

I doubt it's going to work.

That's because PR people who spam bloggers don't think of themselves as spammers. They're "getting the word out." They think they have some sort of obligation/right to announce whatever the client wants.

Here's why this is a problem: stamps add friction. The processing of 100 press releases the old-fashioned way cost more than $100. Doing it to 5,000 people was out of the question.

Email means the cost of adding one more name is zero. Email means that lists keep getting bigger and bigger and once you're on one, you're on em all.

So, the smart PR folks (the successful ones) struggle to make their lists smaller and smaller. The lazy ones just try to make them bigger.