Ahh, summer. A time in which unpaid interns from all over the more expensive schools flock to New York to work as flacks. Today we received this missive from one Angela, a young lady whose lack of understanding in regards to the proper format for a press release is matched only by her lack of understanding of her subject. I took the liberty of marking up your latest email, Angela, in hopes that you will be more careful in the future. If you are not, in fact, an intern, well… [Incidentally, she's not an intern.]
Click the image to read it in all its glory.
Also, this:
Angela would like to recall the message, “Bloomberg News Exclusive: Smart-Phone Attack”.
Doesn’t work.
win
Ouch.
Bloomberg news … EPIC Fail !!
I’m glad you did what she asked : credit bloomberg :D
I agree – this is some poor work. But to be fair, the “Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile” bit, while unwieldy, is the proper description of the company by a financially-oriented publication like Bloomberg. Since T-Mobile is only a brand that is part of the larger Deutsche Telekom (DT) universe – investors would want that piece of information. (Although, an investor should know that already)
Alright, funny… but publishing the name of the person is a bit sadistic. Especially if “Angela” is an intern. If she were a “repeat offender” with some experience, than fine… but in this case it seems a tad unfair. Her supervisor should take the blame instead, we’re talking about Bloomberg for cryin’ out loud!
she’s not an intern
Yes, but for the sake of basically rewriting an old Maddox joke, you’re potentially getting this woman in a tremendous amount of trouble. Maybe even fired. This might be worth it, if it was funny enough.
This woman is going to get fired so you could write the Internet equivalent of “quoting Office Space at a meeting.”
If she cant do here job right, maybe she should get fired.
I’m with Fabio. Let the first one slide, or at least don’t use her last name. That’s just mean.
And be honest John – you’re not exactly Mr. Perfect when it comes to punctuation or editing your posts.
Don’t I know it
Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes stupid ones. While your markups are a bit funny, its definitely mean spirited to publish her name. It doesn’t add the post in any way. All it does is potentially get someone in a lot of trouble. Not cool.
Hmm… if only journsalists were any better…
we aren’t, but this was particularly egregious.
Brutal, just brutal.
She screwed up and recalled it. Easy fella, I’m sure you’ve never made a mistake.
I’ve made plenty.
That’s not a PR, it’s a newswire! no doubt transcribing a press release from someone else of course, so I guess it’s PR by proxy!
this is her pitching Bloomberg’s excellent tech coverage to us lowly bloggers. it’s basically pr FOR Bloomberg.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/07/30/old-media-tech-cover.html
that’s a good post by rob at BBG about this sort of thing. nothing about her email makes sense, even the reasoning behind sending it to us.
So right above the scanned email that includes both sender’s name and company, you’re soliciting for tips claiming “we respect anonymity.” Obviously not.
Talk about irony…
truly ironic, yes
She didnt ask for anonymity, she asked for credit.
I really hope you didn’t ruin her career or her name with this. She is young and fresh out of college. We all make mistakes. To tar and feather her in public, tsk tsk, shame on you. Real Classy.
Dear CrunchGear People: Think before you press ‘Send’
Crunchgear Be careful with that title!!!
“Dear PR(Puerto Rican) People: Think before you press ‘Send’ ”
Oh and her last name happens to be Martinez…….
Seriously?
I’m Puerto Rican, and I find this offensive.
Really, John? I know this was meant for a laugh, but come on….
Look: My job, in a sense, is to pay attention to stuff that will interest you guys. It is PR’s goal to put stuff in front of me that will pique my interest and, as a result, get the agency and the sponsoring company some ink. I agree that this is a simplification but it’s how things work.
This was an attempt to draw my attention to a story on Bloomberg news. I’m sure the story was just dandy. I haven’t read a Bloomberg news piece since I interned there in 2001 and I’m sure all the people are there are just great including Angela.
My issue is this: this was a sloppy, lazy piece of PR that was sent probably to a massive list of folks with a tangential interest in Bloomberg’s coverage of a phone. It was wrong both factually and formulaically and it adds insult to injury with a big old “PLEASE CREDIT” at the bottom, more of a command than a recommendation. The thinking here was, and correct me if I’m wrong, this superior story is worth my attention and so I should cite it and mention Bloomberg by name.
I’m sure it was a mistake. It was Friday. Maybe the free ice cream in Bloomberg HQ ran out. Maybe she was in a rush. Fine. But don’t fill my inbox with dreck and expect to be let off easy. I so rarely get mad at bad pitches – I usually just ignore them, really – and I decided to share. You’re welcome.
Here’s a thought: if you’re “sure its a mistake,” then blur out her name. Now you have holier than thou Internet assholes track down her personal docs. She requested credit for Bloomberg, not for herself.
If you posted this with the name blurred this would have been no big deal and totally worth a chuckle. With her name in it, you’re being malicious and downright cruel.
ok.
I agree – not necessary to show her name.
What’s the big deal? With the exception of mistakenly writing that the review was of the first Android based smart phones, she is merely summarizing Jaroslovsky’s article (which you would know if you had read it). Most of what you criticized are even her own words. Get off your “Editor-in-Chief” high horse, post some good tech news, and stop being a dcik (edit that!).
…aren’t her own word…
crap, I hate when I do that.
It’s lame to claim your holiness was so pissed about bad PR that he’d print, annotate, scan and share that letter on a blog. I’ll bet you wasted more of your time for a cheap chuckle than you actually spent reading the email.
>”The thinking here was, and correct me if I’m wrong, this superior story is worth my attention and so I should cite it and mention Bloomberg by name.”
Stop being so insecure…that last comment in all caps displays a lack of etiquette, deserving a slap on the wrist maybe, but nothing like your mean post.
I bet her handwriting is better than a 7 year olds.
yeah. i don’t know what happened to my handwriting. The nuns tried to teach me penmanship but it never took.
lol how many profs/teachers/etc did you have that would mark up a paper any more legibly than this?
Maybe someone can track down her cell phone number so she can get really harassed.
This is just some kid doing and sending out what her tech lame masters tell her to do and send. Just another one of us who is still happy to have a job, or just hoping that the job lasts a few more weeks and the layoff rumors are just that. You attacked her by name, Google will show this mistake forever and forever it will be a stain on a resume.
Are you even sure that she is the one who wrote this crap, and not just the sender?
First hit for Angela Martin? The stuffy one out of The Office:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Martin
Angela Martin
erm… if the background of this site isnt white I thought I was in /b/.
trolls trolling trolls.
I would love to see the ip logs of the comments and pick out the samefags using different names.
inb4 proxies.
What a bunch of sad malicious nerds, “Boo hoo a girl doing a job got a few things about our expensive manbaby toys is wrong D=”
PS: Saying “Ok.” and not changing your image is about as classy as buying an i-pod on welfare.
I doubt a crunchgear article will lead to anyone getting fired. still, blurring her name wouldn’t have done harm. in the end it’s a press release like any other. just newer, better and more slated of course.
ouch – harsh irony on this following [DO NOT PUBLISH]gate.
If PR people were to do this every time a blog or article got something wrong, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else. Yikes.
Are ya?
Her Linked In shows she’s a few years out of school and has switched jobs a bunch of times. Fancy titles are misleading.
Hey guys, maybe if we’re lucky we can ruin her entire life for basically no reason! EPIC WIN!! OWNED!