E-Media Tidbits

James., via Flickr (CC license) Wired editor Chris Anderson is fed up with lazy PR people.

In a post that's touched off a firestorm in the PR blogospher, Anderson wrote: "I've had it. I get more than 300 e-mails a day and my problem isn't spam ...it's PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can't be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching. Fact: I am an actual person, not a team assigned to read press releases and distribute them to the right editors and writers (that's editor@wired.com).

"The following is just the last month's list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list. All of them have sent me something inappropriate at some point in the past 30 days. Many of them sent press releases; others just added me to a distribution list without asking. If their address gets harvested by spammers by being published here, so be it -- turnabout is fair play."

And then he went ahead and posted more than 300 addresses. In the dozens of comments that followed his post, and in numerous posts to other blogs, opinions ranged among these three flavors summed up nicely by Rohit Bhargava:

1. "PR people are spammers and they deserve it.
2. "Chris makes a fair point, but its unfair to publish people's e-mail addresses or offer them no way to get off the list.
3. "Chris is a self-important blowhard who should get used to the e-mail because he's an editor of a major pub."

What do you think? Was it OK for Anderson to do this? Is it likely to make a dent in the PR spam problem? Would you do this -- or have you done it? Please comment below.