I get a fair number of press releases and contacts from P.R. people. A “fair” number is probably understating it; other bloggers will understand what I’m talking about. Often they’ll be offers to contact researchers and other experts. Generally I ignore these or I demur in some fashion. Why? Because I just have a hard time trusting those who proactively contact me. I’m not impugning their character, as much being skeptical of their enthusiasm (and to be frank, some of them even come out and say they’ll write the blog post for me!). In fact I could easily splash and pepper many of my more policy oriented posts with contemporary relevance with quotes from these people. But I do not make much use of their services (though now and then I’ll become aware of a paper because of a press contact). What exactly would such quotes be adding? I’d just select the ones which fit my narrative or preconception. On occasion I will quote experts, but these are almost never (actually, probably never, but I don’t recall) cases where I sent out an email asking for a quote. Rather, it starts as a conversation, and it turns out that I …
On being a journalist, getting quotes