• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, June 5, 2017

So I get this email earlier today from some PR person who clearly isn’t steeped in the rules of the game. 

And that’s too bad, but I guess we all have to learn some time — and sometimes the hard way. Mistake No. 1 was to open the missive with some ridiculous flattery about how this person loves my articles. Oooh, aaah. Boy, did that feel good. Such a happy ending. 

No, no, only the beginning, but let me zip up my pants, metaphorically speaking. 

Then this person, I guess thinking I’m so open to persuasion after the opening suck-up, delivers a fat pitch: “I think that I have something that may be a very powerful story for you.” 

Hahahahahahaha! Never heard that one before! 

But it gets even better. This person’s company is announcing the launch of a big new product. Tomorrow. On Indiegogo. And it’s embargoed until 9 a.m. tomorrow. Here’s the link to the press release. 

No! It isn’t embargoed until tomorrow, until I agree to it, you idiot! What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t know me from Adam (or Eve) and you just throw it out there, like we have some journo-source relationship going back to the '80s. 

And by the way, the same goes for “off-the-record” information. Never tell a reporter something and then say, but that’s off the record. Unless you want it printed. Immediately. 

But I do hope your Enchanted Soul beautiful ring business goes gangbusters. And if I actually gave a damn about it, or thought most readers would, I’d expand further on the concept. Right now.

I mean, why put off to tomorrow what I can write today?

Unless I agree to an embargo, of course.