Press Release reply: Unprofessional or harmless fun?

[schiezainc]

OK, so, I've got a bit of a question.

I know we all have to deal with assholes from some PR firm sending us stuff that A.) Has nothing to do with us, B.) Has nothing to do with our coverage area in any way, shape, or form, C.) Is clearly only getting sent to us as spam and D.) Wastes our time.

So, lately, I've been having fun with this.

Whenever I get a press release that is CLEARLY spam and/or a waste of time, I like to fire back a nice little email that says (And I'm quoting verbatim here): "Wow. This sounds exciting. If you could just let me know exactly what this has to do with local sports in the Southern Rhode Island area, I'd be more than thrilled. Thanks."

Now, to me, this is not an issue. You waste my time, I should be able to shoot you a harmless sarcastic email back. It's worth noting that I also like to do this because, three separate times now, people have replied and said they were sorry and removed my email address from their books.

Then, yesterday, I got a message from someone in London advertising the fact that (And I'm not making this up) Fat Boy Slim is performing at a Music Festival in England during the World Cup.

Now, I took the time to read this. Thoroughly. And, upon, figuring out that not only could I not use this information for any good but, in addition, this isn't even something I could pass along to a features editor or news editor at my place, I decided to toss it in the spam category and sent my tradition message along.

Surprisingly, dude emailed me back saying (and I'm quoting here because of the awesomeness of it all): "Do u not want to write about the world cup in hopes that it will be less provencial than your usual dribble...
Dude be glad you are being informed... If you dont like.. There is a key called delete..."

After a nice reply email where I calmly responded with "Why don't you do your job and send this type of information to people who are actually going to use it instead of sending it to everyone who has an email address that you can get your hands on?", I concluded by letting him know I was grateful that he replied to me because, normally, I assume these are just computer programs sending me this information and, as such, it's nice to know that "if this
whole writing thing doesn't work out, I can always make a living letting people on the other side of the world know that there's a Madden tournament going on in my basement with me and three of my friends."

So, after that long winded story, I come here to ask: Since this is a work email account, am I A.) Being unprofessional sending not only this reply to this particular person but to PR agencies in general? B.) Should I just suck it up and accept that this is a part of my job and I'll have to wade through ****ty spam emails? C.) Do I have a right to reply to these folks because it is MY work email address or should I take it on the chin because it is a WORK email address?

Just wondering. Thanks for any help.

P.S. I really hate Fat Boy Slim and the fact that I didn't mention this in the email should give me points for being professional right?

 

[slappy4428]

Christopher Walken will be there; why won't you?

 

[schiezainc]

Christopher Walken will be there; why won't you?

Because Fat Boy Slim sucks.

 

[Babyjay]

Yes, yes and the latter. It's totally unprofessional. You're representing the paper. If it were personal e-mail, that would be something else.

 

[schiezainc]

Yes, yes and the latter. It's totally unprofessional. You're representing the paper. If it were personal e-mail, that would be something else.

See, this was my worry. The only reason I wasn't too concerned, at first, was that our email addresses end with a generic address so there's no direct connection with our paper.

I'll keep this in mind though. Thanks.

 

[copperpot]

I agree that it's unprofessional. If you have to ask yourself, then just don't do it.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

I'm sorry, but the information you sent me cannot be used by me or in my section. After checking with other editors, they too are not interested. Please kindly remove me from your address book.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Are you bored?

 

[trifectarich]

Seems like a lot of people have too much time on their hands.

 

[93Devil]

You did spend more company time typing the response, but the guy is a twit.

And you are wrong about fbs.

 

[CentralIllinoisan]

I'm sorry, but the information you sent me cannot be used by me or in my section. After checking with other editors, they too are not interested. Please kindly remove me from your address book.

This is what you write back.

 

[KJIM]

Follow the dude's suggestion and hit delete.

Him sending the e-mail isn't wasting your time; you reading it and replying to it is. And

You could also simply ask to be taken off of their mailing list, or direct them to the right department.

Don't be sarcastic. Like someone else said, if you have to ask, don't.

 

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

We had this reporter who was a complete and total f-up. Right before he was unceremoniously shown the door, he wrote a story off a press release but had written a mistake into his story. So, his course of action was to contact the PR firm and ask if they could put his mistake into their press release and have them re-send it ... which, I'm sure they still laughingly talk about to this day.

All we needed to know about this reporter was this: On his first day, the EE asked if he could show him around, and the reporter replied, "I'd rather not. I'm having explosive diarrhea right now."

 

[WolvEagle]

I'm sorry, but the information you sent me cannot be used by me or in my section. After checking with other editors, they too are not interested. Please kindly remove me from your address book.

This is what you write back.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

 

[schiezainc]

You did spend more company time typing the response, but the guy is a twit.

And you are wrong about fbs.

Actually, I did this on my own time. I was minding my business at home, surfing the web and check my email to see if there's anything newsworthy there.

And fatboy slim sucks balls.

 

[spnited]

You did spend more company time typing the response, but the guy is a twit.

And you are wrong about fbs.

Actually, I did this on my own time. I was minding my business at home, surfing the web and check my email to see if there's anything newsworthy there.

And fatboy slim sucks balls.

Still unprofessional and juvenile. Just delete and forget about it.

 

[Starman]

Mass e-mail spammers have no expectation of professionalism in their replies.



Dear XXXXXX:

There are no conceivable circumstances in which our department, the Sports Department of the Daily Grunt, is likely to use any information concerning your client.

Remove us from your list immediately.

You will notice this sentence did not include the word "please." This is intentional; this is a directive, not a request.

Expecting your compliance.

Starman,
Daily Grunt Sports

 

[Ace]

As an SportsJournalists.com devotee, I feel it would be hypocritical of me to get angry at someone for wasting my time on the Internet.

I