Unless you’ve been otherwise engaged during the past 48 hours, you’d know the public relations world is up in arms about Steven Pearlstein’s lambasting of our noble profession.

The Washington Post’s business and economics columnist’s piece of July castigates “flacks” for ducking his calls, forcing him to send his inquiry to “…an e-mail drop box” or asking him to leave “…..a message with a ‘media hotline’ that invariably is unmanned 24/7.”

Pearlstein seems to think this sort of behavior is standard operating procedure. It’s not.

But to prove his supposition, Pearlstein conducted a search of the rival New York Times’ Business Section and listed the names of 16 companies that either declined to comment or “were rude enough to never respond to a reporter’s questions.”

I can’t speak for those 16 companies or the fine folks at Clorox, whose PR representative took a special beating for telling Pearlstein the company’s executives were too busy to answer his questions. That’s unacceptable behavior. Full stop.

At Peppercomm, our media relations professionals are carefully trained in the art and science of interacting with the media.

They NEVER duck a reporter’s calls. Nor will they allow a client to provide a “no comment” response to a reporter’s question. The reason is two-fold:

– A no comment sends the wrong message to a reporter and her readers. In fact, it elicits a Pavlovian response. To wit: What are they hiding?

– A no comment also prevents the organization from providing their side of the story to be reported. As we tell every client, “If you don’t control your narrative, somebody else will.”

Pearlstein rightly points out that corporations have a love affair with owned and paid media. Why? Because it enables them to micro target and personalize the information or entertainment they are providing to their multiple audiences.

And the multiple audiences part of the equation is what Pearlstein has clearly overlooked.

Our clients need to connect with a wide range of audiences from both a psychographic and demographic standpoint.

So if we’re trying to increase consideration of a European luxury car brand among well-heeled Millennials, we most surely wouldn’t approach The Washington Post.

Instead, we’d take a deep analytic dive in order to learn how, and from whom, those Millennials consume information and form their opinions. In some instances, it’s a series of key influencers in the area of design, music and fashion. In others, it might be a series of offbeat concert appearances by a fast-rising pop star.

Micro targeting and personalized messaging is the currency of the day, Mr. Pearlstein. So allow me to personalize the rest of this blog.

There’s a very good chance your calls and e-mails are being ignored because the PR powers that be decided The Post simply isn’t being read by their stakeholders (not that I’m excusing the PR types’ boorish, unresponsive behavior).

You CAN rest assured, though, that The WashPo, New York Times, CNBC, NPR and other traditional outlets remain absolutely critical to reaching business audiences, highly educated Boomers and the Beltway intelligentsia, among others.

And you can also take comfort in knowing that, at least in Peppercomm’s case, we will not only return your call or e-mail, we will also NEVER contact you unless we’ve first read your column, fully understand the topics and subjects that pique your interest AND suggest how and why our client’s message would be of interest to your readers.

So rather than castigating flacks (a deplorable slur, btw) Mr. Pearlstein, you should wake up to the realities of the year 2018.

The Washington Post remains incredibly important to those publicists attempting to pinpoint the newspaper’s unique reader profile.

But if I want to reach a single mother holding down two jobs while raising three small children, I wouldn’t give The Post a second thought. And, Mr. Pearlstein, you can quote me on that.