Peter Shankman, a marketing/PR practioner/speaker, has set up a service called HelpAReporter.com that intends to bring together journalists and sources. It’s free and very informal — you sign up for emails, you respond to requests for help — which is an appropriate way to start. But it’s so ripe an opportunity for abuse by people pushing their clients’ points of view, or just pushing their clients’ brands, that it’ll be interesting to see whether journalists avail themselves of it. Because it’s a mailing list that arrives up to three times a day, my guess is that it’ll mainly be PR folks and lobbyists who attend to it closely enough, and that will (?) drive down its utility for journalists. But, I’m rarely right, so we’ll see…

[Tags: marketing pr journalism media ]

[Later that day: See Peter S’s comment about how he handles abusers. Sounds pretty effective to me :)

Categories: Uncategorized dw