There were eyeballs rolling throughout the PR field earlier this week when another journalist compiled another Z-list of PR agencies that supposedly can’t pitch straight.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, a Gawker Media blog about efficiency…

If they only want email from specific people or about specific subjects, they should state that next to their email address.

The fact, people don;t do that because they fear they’ll miss out on some opportunity or other.

In that case, they have to expect to spend a certain amount of time sorting out the “acceptable” emails from the “unacceptable” emails. Exposing certain people for emailing her because they didn’t understand her unwritten rules seems to be passing the buck somewhat.

When book publishers started sending me free books (review copies) and asking me to interview their authors I certainly wasn’t offended even when the books were lame or a topic I wasn’t interested in. I thought it was pretty cool that they thought my little blog was important enough to want my opinion.

Believe me it was a little blog and my opinion certainly wasn’t and isn’t that important.

As for main stream journalists participating in a blacklist I say they should be looking for a new job. http://tinyurl.com/5hppfh

I’m wondering what the downstream of all this is, too. I don’t like carpetbomb pitching any more than most folks, but if I ball up behind my blog’s wall, what then?

Anyhow, certainly worth thinking about.

Unfortunately, PR practitioners sometimes do cut corners by not regularly reading the blog that they are pitching or by failing to do a little research before pitching (hence then they would know that Gina doesn’t want pitches to her personal email but rather the lifehackers tips email address).

But another element that Gina fails to mention (and she may be unaware of) is that crappy Cision (and possibly Vocus, too. I’m not a subscriber there so I couldn’t check) has her personal email address listed as the email address to pitch to and doesn’t have the “tips” email listed at all.

I wanted to throw this point into the ring because it’s part of the problem and all day yesterday it was bothering me that nobody brought it to light, which is why I was thrilled to see that you (Todd) mentioned it on Meg Roberts’ post earlier today (which I gave you kudos for).

Cision is also part of the problem, but don’t get me started on Cision. Every time I have to use it I’m compelled to start a CisionSucks.com blog just to vent my frustrations, but I don’t, because that would only add to the problem and I’m not about that.

And black lists don’t solve the real problem, which is that companies, and their agencies, need to find better ways to engage with bloggers than they have been. It’s more than a pitch or a press release — we’ve got to do a better job of understanding why the blogger cares. I know SHIFT tries to do this. I also imagine like all agencies you face the usual pressures from clients to get coverage on things that aren’t terribly exciting.

More, much more on this, as you know, on my blog

Umm, I don’t get it. Who am I passing the hot potato to? Back to Gina? I don’t buy it. I am sorry if we spammed her and said so. I also disagree with the way she handled the situation, and politely asked her to reconsider. Are you suggesting that the other agencies on that list did the right thing by ignoring it?

(As for that long-ago TechCrunch episode: if a client blatantly disregards our counsel and proactively does something that can impact our agency’s reputation, you better believe I’ll call it out. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Not sure we can have transparency AND cling to the age-old “client is always right” mentality of yore. Surprised you disagree.)

Jeremy, it seems we rarely agree – even though I think we agree on many of the Big Points of Social Media. I’ve resigned myself to this sad reality and bow before your Snarky Genius. Have a great weekend, Mr. Pepper.