Bacon’s = Bad, MediaMap = Bad

As I just told a time-wasting caller from a public relations agency in San Francisco, “Any PR professional who would pitch an editor based on information in Bacon’s MediaMap is not a PR professional.”

Bacon’s and MediaMap are always-out-of-date directories that lazy PR professionals use to learn about upcoming feature articles in trade publications like SD Times or Software Test & Performance. (MediaMap merged with Bacon’s in 2003.) These and other “PR aggregation” services were useful 10+ years ago, when trade publications only offered printed editorial calendars, which the media directories conveniently amalgamated together.

However, today, nearly all trade publications place their editorial calendars on the Web, and include the appropriate contact information.

PR professionals should use the up-to-date information provided by these publications (as a service to the PR community) instead of using the out-of-date information provided by the media directories to pitch the wrong editors at key publications about the wrong stories.

Best case: PR professionals should know their top-tier media targets, and read them regularly. For upcoming stories, work directly from each publication’s Web-based editorial calendar. To find the right reporter, look at the online beat list and check the bylines on recent, relevant coverage. This will yield the best, most timely, most accurate, most complete results.

Almost as good: Prospecting using Bacon’s MediaMap or another media directory, but then verifying the information using the publications’ Web-based editorial calendars before picking up the phone. Of course, you’ll miss stories that aren’t listed in Bacon’s MediaMap, but that’s what happens when you’re lazy.

Not good: Making pitch calls or sending e-mails based on Bacon’s MediaMap or another media directory, and thereby wasting your time and annoying editors who haven’t been the appropriate contact for years, or asking questions about stories that nobody’s ever heard of. If your excuse is that you don’t read my publication, even on the Web, then, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

>> Update 2:40 pm Pacific: I’ve had some nice private comments about this post — mainly from tech journalists who share this frustration, but also one from a senior PR professional who said, essentially, “Hey, Alan, what do you expect?” I’ve also stumbled across three interesting blog postings from early 2006 that discuss Bacon’s MediaMap, from Steve Rubel, Sherri and Karen Sams.