Frankie Flack: Yelling, PR pitches and business journalism

OK, sports fans. Confession time. I’ve been known to send pitches over email that are beyond the pale. I’ve sent stuff to reporters who I know would never consider the news in a million years. I’ve called reporters to garner their thought on my story idea even when I know damn well what they think. […]

Frankie Flack: Who’s spinning now?

This morning, the fine folks at the Pew Research Center put up a blog post that should serve as red meat to every ink-stained wretch who likes to rail against the idea that he’s battling poverty while us flacks are living like kings. The post is titled “The growing pay gap between journalism and public […]

Frankie Flack: My releases are the new newswire

My name might say “flack,” but the reality is that I’m in the information-delivery game. Some might even say I’m in the news business. A bastardized, corporate version of the news business, but the news business nonetheless. I wake up every morning interested in getting relevant news to people who need that information. Just like […]

Frankie Flack: Time to start credentialing journalists

This isn’t the right time to be making this argument, what with the absolutely asinine blackballing of SCOTUSblog from the Senate press gallery, but it has to be said: it’s time to start credentialing journalists. I know, I know: that’s the kind of statement that make the guardians of New Journalism — the Jeff Jarvis […]

Frankie Flack: Why can’t I get more biz reporters to go OTR?

I used to gossip more, back in the good old days. A reporter would ring me up, I’d give her the line of the day. Then I’d ask: “Want to go off the record?” She’d say, “Sure!” And we’d be off to the races: who was up, who was down, what was rumored to be […]

Frankie Flack: We need more biz reporters, not more flacks

If it feels like there are more and more of us flacks out there, you’re not imaging things. The Bureau of Labor Statistics made it official last month: PR professionals outnumber journalists 4.2 to 1. I’m not celebrating those stats. I don’t see communication as some sort of zero-sum death match between flacks and hacks. […]

Frankie Flack: Don’t ignore PR people; tell them to get lost

When I talk to business journalists about flacks, they all have the same complaint: too much contact. Too much email. Too many phone calls. Especially from junior folks who haven’t learned the rules of the road. I’m going to tell you all how to mitigate that problem. Listen up, hacks. If you heed my advice, […]

Frankie Flack: Lies, damn lies, statistics and business journalism

If you’re a business reporter and don’t love numbers, I don’t want anything to do with you. I love selling stories with facts and figures a lot more than I like selling sizzle. Show me market share or same-store sales or margins data, and I’ll go to town. In contrast, today’s great profile of a […]

Frankie Flack: Pack journalism invades business journalism

So last month, I was taking a short mental health break (flacking, believe it or not, can be draining at times), and I ran across a weird little story at Gizmodo about a company that will take your ultrasound and, using 3-D printing, create a life-size replica of your fetus. The story wasn’t, strictly speaking, […]

Frankie Flack: Why commentary is killing business journalism

So last week, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, wunderkid (apparently, when writing about Ezra, there is a rule you must use the term “wunderkid”), walked away from the newspaper to create his own digital property. But Ezra is hardly an original; his departure lagged that of Walter Mossberg‘s decision to flee the confines of The […]