A former colleague of mine at Sterling Hager, Inc. is due a great deal of credit for his dogged persistence. In the establishment PR world, persistence is worth its weight in gold. In support of my view that Todd Defren is the human PR equivalent of bullion, I draw your attention to his post a couple days ago entitled, Wanna See What the Media 2.0 Pitch" Looks Like?

In this post, Mr. Defren leads with this statement: I've written before (here and here) about how PR pros could use a combination of del.icio.us and RSS to keep reporters in-the-loop, in a highly contextual way, about clients' news and views on industry events. He continues by noting the variety of ways we can make client news easier, more complete, richer and so forth for media contacts.

…what if you could make it really, really easy?  What if you could simply point the reporter down a trail, knowing that your efforts to construct a story for them will be fully understood (and maybe even appreciated)?

Working together and separately. Todd Defren and I, on behalf of new, visionary companies, have hand delivered news to media contacts. We have prepared FAQs, backgrounders, case studies, polished pitches, precis, overviews, roundups, tutorials, and extracts. We have made a million outbound calls. We have delivered thoroughly prepared clients to the media's door. We've developed competitive analysis and market research reports. He knows that in spite of all this, for every 1000 outbound press calls an agency makes, it might, on a good day, get from three to seven inbound calls from the establishment media. He knows this. And yet, his solution to all of this is focused on how we all can make the process easier for the media.  Todd… the establishment media isn't neglecting to pay attention because we've made the news obtuse. They're simply not paying attention. They don't have to; they don't want to; they aren't rewarded on the basis of shining a light on upstarts, some of which actually will change the world.

For years, the establishment media paid no price for this exclusion. Your approach — give them more, deliver it better — implies the problem is with us, with you. We need to change. I disagree. But, you're not alone in your view…

Here for example is how Schwartz Communications, a leading Boston-area-based firm with which Todd competes, sees the world today: In their "About Us' section, Schwartz asserts the following in sentence two of their pitch: In a media-driven world, Schwartz helps companies translate technical innovation into market advantage.

In a media-driven world? Really? Surely Schwartz's world is media-driven. In the real world, however, while the media still has a role, a balanced focus is on communications to decision makers. They are all online. They are reading, contributing to, commenting about, and engaging communities of peers wholly external to the traditional world of establishment media.

Persistence is to be applauded. Stubborn is a good thing when you're right and ahead of your time. But this loyalty to an old world long since changed makes establishment people, good people like Mr. Defren, look, well… I don't want to say. It makes good people look less capable than they really are. Let's leave it at that, with the emphasis, of course, on the word "leave."

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