A Mother of a Day: Mom bloggers on the Today Show and a bad-pitch-apalooza

What a day!

It started with the C-string on the Today Show — that’s the team after Matt and Meredith, after Al and Ann, which apparently now features Kathie Lee Gifford along with Hoda Kotb. This is where Today decided to effectively bury its taped segment with mom bloggers Jill Asher, Kristen Chase and Mir Kamin as well as its live interview with Heather Armstrong (dooce). Jill, Kristen and Mir at least benefited from a reporter, Janet Shamlian, who actually listened to their answers, although I do wonder about the editing of the interview. As Christina mentions in her post, the women discussed far more topics, including the importance of community, than made the cut.  And amateurs on YouTube do a better job with chyrons than whoever edited the taped piece. Here’s just one example — below is a screen grab of Jill Asher from Silicon Valley Moms. Maria Bailey is later in the piece, without a chyron at all.

But it was a decent segment and also included mentions of BlogHer. Too bad the network showed it at a time when it has relatively few viewers. So few in fact that it the local affiliates run second and third tier advertising. And in my case, the weekly tests of the emergency broadcast system.

The interview with Heather Armstrong was … There are really no words other than to say that the decision to employ Kathie Lee Gifford shows how out of touch the network is with its audience. Gifford was absolutely awful. I wish I had video skilz because then I would create a mash-up of the segment with the discussion on Twitter running alongside. You would literally pee your pants at some of the very on-target comments. Just do a few searches on tweetscan and summize, on Today show and Kathie Lee (use various spellings and intials, no one was too fussed about spelling it right).

Let’s just say no one was too impressed with Kathie Lee, her attitude, her preparation for the interview or the way she stomped on Heather’s answers.

I ask again: why did NBC think hiring Kathie Lee was a good thing? Seriously, I’d rather watch an infomercial. At least they are honest. Gifford has the gall to judge mom bloggers for writing about their kids when we ALL remember how she pimped her own kids on Regis & Kathie Lee. Blecch.

Moving on to the bad-pitch-apalooza. Apparently Mother’s Day brings out the best in bad pitches… Does that even make sense? Today, two duds crossed my desk, shared with me by mom blogger friends. Names have been removed to protect the innocent and guilty. Here are the first paragraphs from both.

and

Where, oh where, do I start? I know. How about:

• Grammatical English. Moms, not Mom’s
• Learn the tools, people. The parenthetical comment in the first is just embarassing. For those PR folks that still don’t get how bad this crap is, read it. And weep. The pitch was awful too, but it almost doesn’t matter. Nobody read past the parens.
• As for the second. Sent to mom bloggers? Uhm, last I checked, they weren’t going to prom. For most of us, our kids don’t even have all their adult teeth, forget about zits. I did an informal and completely unscientific survey on Twitter and many moms I know personally received this mass emailed pitch. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Especially given the analysis Johnson’s  recently experienced.

There’s no excuse for this sort of error. It is absolutely crystal clear that no one is doing any homework here.

Compare and contrast with this pitch I received today:

Now, that’s refreshing. A PR person who actually understands that sending me a pitch is risky business. A calculated risk on the sender’s part that I would appreciate this approach, but if you read my blog, you’d be smart and take the chance. As she did. Sure, I’m critical, but always in the interest of doing it better, getting it right.

I also feel strongly about helping junior people get it right. My friend Liz Gumbinner (Mom-101 and Cool Mom Picks) regularly replies back to PR folks  for the same reason. We know they are young kids, thrown in the deep end, without enough help or training. "Just send these emails."

In this case, the pitch, for a market research report, was on target but way too long. No one would read it. I certainly didn’t. I also do not recommend asking bloggers to write. If the pitch is good, you don’t need to ask.  I gave her some input and asked for the report, and was pleased to receive, along with the report, her grateful reply that she was re-writing her email pitch based on my feedback.

Amen. And thanks.

Tags: Today Show, mom blogs, Kathie Lee Gifford, blogger relations