MIR gets on the wrong side of Coracle Group
Coracle Group…
That name rings a bell? They’re the high-integrity communications specialists!
Yes. It’s run, in part, by Richard L. Purcell. He’s the Executive Director that’s been mailing me demanding we edit some posts on MIR Company News.
If you’re not familiar with MIR Company News, it’s where we stick the press releases that we are probably never going to cover. A while ago I felt we should do something with the tons of releases we’re sent every week.
Anything remotely mobile related, we’ve been sticking up on to MIR Company News. I’ve been meaning to then integrate an RSS feed on to the main MIR site. Whilst it’d be a feed of straight press releases, sometimes the releases can be quite useful.
Michelle has diligently been cutting and pasting the releases into the WordPress window for MIR Company News. Our policy is to cut and paste everything. Although the site already has quite a bit of traffic, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand. It definitely isn’t news. It’s just a resource we’ve been creating, mostly for our own benefit. I have, for example, used it a few times for some searches.
We cut and paste the whole lot. Even the PR note at the bottom with the contact details of the PR company or the company’s marketing team contacts.
Mr Purcell took exception to this practice. I’m not sure why.
He emailed during the height of Mobile World Congress, thus:
Hi Ewan,
We were pleased to see the Feb. 24 posting of “Bluegrass Cellular Deploys Hosted CSC Gateway from Interop Technologies.â€Â
We do have a request to make. In the distribution email for the release, there was information below the traditional closing notation of “# # #,†that was meant for the journalists receiving the email. That information has gotten posted along with the press release.
He continues:
As soon as time permits, please kindly remove the following information from the bottom of the posted release:
This is the bit he had a problem with us posting:
We make every effort to send news and information that is within your area of interest. To ensure that you receive future news from us, please add news_for_media@coraclegroup.com to your “safe senders†list. If it is best to redirect releases to another journalist in your organization or you prefer to have your address removed from our distribution list, please let us know by responding to this email. You will receive a confirmation message. Thank you.
I recognise that if you’re a client — in this case, Bluegrass Cellular, it doesn’t look that good to see a PR boilerplate on the bottom, not if
For example, this story here is listed as ‘press coverage’ achieved by Coracle Media: TCM NET: Interop Technologies to Offer AdaptiveMobile Parental and Enterprise Controls .
It’s a press release. How do I know? Well, here’s the actual release posted on AdaptiveMobile’s site. It’s the same copy. One has TCM Net branding on it, the other is the AdaptiveMobile release.
They’re exactly the same. But obviously the boilerplate press release stuff isn’t included on the TCMNet ‘article’.
The trouble is, you couldn’t easily use MIR Company News posts as ‘press coverage’ articles because we do a cut and paste of everything.
Surely Coracle should be pleased that, at my own personal expense, we even published the post?
Anyway.
Two days later, whilst we’re still in the midst of handling Mobile World Congress, Richard was back on the mail with a follow-up:
Hi, Ewan.
I’m sure you must have your hands full right now.
We would appreciate you removing posted information that was not part of the press release sent to you earlier in the week.
Thank you.
Richard
I starred it. I’ll sort that soon, I thought.
The 9th of March arrived. I confess I still hadn’t got round to dealing with the request.
Richard was back with a simple one line statement:
Hello Ewan.
Please remove the non-news portion of the press release content appearing on your site.
24 hours later, Richard was back. I should, I suppose, have stopped everything and sorted it all out. But no. We’ve doubly-wound him up, unfortunately:
Ewan, in spite of our best efforts at removing you from our mailing list – considering the lack of response to previous requests, you have not only received our latest press release, but your site has once again posted information that was meant for journalist recipients only.
“SkyCross Unveils iMAT Antenna Products for Access Points and Routersâ€Â
The press release uses the traditional closing marks of # # #.
If you are unable to make an adjustment in your processes, please let me know what email address delivers press releases to you. I have already removed ewan@smstextnews.com from our lists.
Thank you.
Richard
Goodness me Richard!
Is it really that much of a faux pas?
What a bore.
I emailed Richard and explained that he should remove anything from your mailing list that includes mobileindustryreview.com or smstextnews.com. That way we’ll avoid winding him up. And he’ll avoid cluttering up our inboxes.
I have to take a step back now and again and wonder what the point is of Michelle posting rubbish about Skycross or Bluegrass or whoever. I actually did think I was doing folk a small favour.
I’ve removed all the Coracle Media stuff from MIR Company News. And I’ve set any further mails from them to go straight into the glorious Google Trash.
Goodness me. What a trauma.
