I’ve noticed for many months, or even a couple years, publicist invitations to interview someone. I’ve accepted interview invitations for many years from publicists that resulted in the subject asking, “What do you want to discuss?” I go, hmmm, I thought you initiated the interview, because you had something to say or promote.
Listening to Dan Heath’s WorkLife podcast today, he discussed AI publicists. So, I’m not the only one! We receive an invitation to interview someone. The email begins with “we’ve noticed on a recent podcast (or blog post) that you’re interested in (x).” They then apply some torturous logic to go from that thought to someone who (according to the description) deserves a Nobel for being a genius. Usually there is no correlation to what I do. They obviously used some form of AI to scan for blog posts or podcasts and scrape a thought, then extrapolate.
I used to send a polite reply. But more of these came. Now I delete unopened.
I understand how hard it must be to make a living in PR these days. I’m guessing they get paid for the number of interviews or some such metric.
The old way is still the best way. Cultivate the respected writers who best fit the profile of the company/person/product. But try selling that to a small business owner or marketing director who is looking at the media stars with millions of hits. Give it up.
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