As PR people we can help each other, but let’s face it, it’s much more effective to learn best practices straight from the horse’s mouth, which is why we’ll be featuring interviews with talented journalists asked to give their candid opinions on the PR people they work with everyday. Hold your breath – this might hurt a little!

We are very fortunate to kick off this series with an interview with Ken Wheaton, an assistant managing editor for Advertising Age.  I wanted to chat with Ken because I enjoy his sarcastic wit and frank commentary.  Ken describes himself as a crank, grouch and contrarian (I bet he’s really a softie) who starts every day at The Daily Puppy and I Can Haz Cheezburger (see I told you). An aspiring marine biologist from Opelousas, Louisiana, he switched majors to English and took only a single journalism class.

In addition to his role at Ad Age, the newlywed (one year!) has also completed his first novel, “The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival”, which will be out in December from Kensington Books. Set in South Louisiana, it’s a comedy about a priest (from my dialogue with him a comedy makes a lot of sense – he is very funny). Ken is also wrapping up a second novel (all I know is it talks about advertising, Twitter, Gawker and some other fun stuff!).

I want to preface this interview by saying that it is well worth the read – Ken has provided us with some fantastic insight woven together with his incredibly biting humor.  Enjoy!

RK: You are an assistant managing editor for Advertising Age.  Can you tell me a little more about your role?

KW: We have a few a.m.e’s at Ad Age and each of our roles is a little different. Each, however, is primarily an editing role and not a writing role. In other words, we’re not the ones on the front lines doing the reporting. While we as editors try to think up compelling stories for our readers, the reporters — who quickly become experts in their specific beats — come up with the bulk of story ideas. They pitch to us and we give thumbs up or thumbs down.

And while I do a good bit more writing than the other a.m.e.’s because of the Adages column and the blogs, I’m typically NOT out there hustling for stories. People, listen to me, figure out what reporters cover what beat and call them! Besides, if the reporter is convinced it’s a story, I’m more likely to be convinced.

Here’s what I do. I write/edit Adages the Blog. I write/edit Adages the column in the print book. I edit Small Agency Diary. I edit Big Tent, our diversity blog (and sometimes write for that, too.) During political cycles I write/edit Campaign Trail. I also edit the Columns page and the Viewpoint page. And, yes, I edit stories for the rest of the book as well. It’s a whole lot of cat wrangling.

Things that should be pitched in my general direction are guest columns, guest blogs, and potential bloggers for Small Agency Diary or Big Tent. You CAN pitch straight news my way, but I’m not always the best person for that.

You are charged with selecting stories for both online and print.  How do you determine where a story is most appropriate? Are the approaches to reporting and writing style different depending on the medium?

There was a time when we thought there were huge differences between Web and print. For a while we fell into that thinking of “Let’s save the important stuff for the book and we’ll run everything else on the Web.” Those days, thank God, are over. If it’s a big story, and it’s finished, it goes on the Web. We will hold an analytical piece for publication in print–but it’s still going to end up on the Web come Monday. And there isn’t any longer such a thing as a big breaking exclusive that we can hold through the week and over the weekend, hoping that no one else will get it.

I’d say in terms of writing stories, there isn’t much difference between the two. Of course, when it comes to blogging, there’s a difference in tone and pacing. And when it comes to headline writing, you do things in print a certain way (due to space restrictions and reading habits) and things on the Web another way (due to reading habits and the bane of my existence, SEO).

Now if you could kindly tell your CLIENTS that one isn’t better than the other! It gets pretty frustrating to have a PR person call up and say, “Hey, we’ll give you a great story. But it has to run in print.” I like to think that MOST PR people understand why we hang up on them at that point.

Firstly, we get very huffy when you call up trying to dictate how we’re going to cover something and where it’s going to run. Secondly … well, there is no secondly. I believe most PR people get it and I feel bad for those who have clients who think that if it doesn’t run in print it doesn’t count. And, yes, I’ve had that discussion: “God, I know. Don’t hate me, but my client wants it to run in print. He doesn’t read the Web.” Listen, I understand.

And I also understand why a particular client wants it to run in print. Because your client is likely an old white guy who still writes longhand and uses the fax machine. He has an assistant he might still refer to as a secretary and she brings him the print version of newspapers every morning. He thinks the interwebs machine is a series of tubes and you damn hippies better stay off his lawn. And his friends in the business all do the same thing. So, for them, it’s true: if it’s not in print, it doesn’t count.

And, for the time being, we have a bit of print crowd and online crowd that don’t overlap at all. From my own little realm, I can have a post on Adages that gets heavy readership all week long and I’ll run it in the book feeling guilty for recycling and suddenly I’ll hear from people I haven’t heard from in awhile. Same thing with our bloggers. They’ll get feedback of one kind on the site and on those occasions when I run an entire post in the book, they’ll get a completely different type of feedback.

Sooner or later that will end. I hope. Tell your clients you get a) more room on the Web and b) more readers on the Web.

I’ve seen some pretty passionate viewpoints from you in regards to Twitter.  What do you love about the tool and what about it drives you crazy?

I think Twitter is fun. I think it can be useful for some things — like meeting people of similar interests, starting fights, customer service, finding new sources, really small-scale fundraising or marketing, those sorts of things.

To be honest, I got into Twittering for, wait for it, marketing myself. SHOCK! HORROR! Why, just last year I was making fun of Twitterers. And then I figured, I have a novel coming out, maybe I should try it. I wasn’t so stupid that I thought I’d be able to hop on two weeks before the book came out and say, “HEY GUYS, GO BUY MY BOOK. K, THNX, BAI!”

So I jumped in and, as I sort of suspected I would, became addicted immediately and now my wife laughs at ME for Twittering and then I’m like, “Shut up! You don’t understand. You NEVER understand!” (Or maybe I’m getting mixed up with the time my mom wouldn’t buy me that Michael Jackson pleather jacket with all the zippers.)

What drives me crazy about Twitter is the Twitterers. And you know who you are, the ones who think Twitter will free Iran and cure cancer and break the back of the mainstream media. You’re probably the same people who jumped my case when I said Second Life was a big stinking loser and businesses shouldn’t waste time or money in the space! HA! I’ve taken some pretty nasty shots at these groups in the past.

Indeed, I think that this piece — Web 2.0 Cured My Cancer and Made Me Taller — is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written. Ironically enough, a week after writing that, I found out I had a minor form of skin cancer. That’s what happened when you mess with Web 2.0!  But keep in mind that I USE all of these tools and I like all of these tools — except Second Life, which I think was put on the earth for the sole purpose of allowing me to call someone else a nerd for a change.

Twitter gurus and social-media experts who claim that this space can do it all bug me as well–especially when they’re trying to separate people from their money with their tips and promises. I swear if I hear one more person claim that Obama won the election because of social media I’m going to scream.

The two biggest keys to Barack Obama’s win? TV and e-mail. How do I know this? His own campaign SAID SO. DO YOU HEAR ME PEOPLE? OBAMA’S CAMPAIGN SAID SO.

Call up Joe Rospars (or search our story about him on AdAge.com). E-mail was the unheralded star of the digital effort. The other things were useful, to be sure. But don’t underestimate e-mail. Indeed, he said for politicians there’s not much point on getting in on the ground floor of every new digital thing precisely because there are no people there yet. And digital was used to do two things, build word of mouth and — just as important — rake in loads of money to spend on, guess what, TV!

The Iran thing really pissed me off for two reasons. One was that I felt like I was surrounded by a bunch of 17-year-olds who, just because THEY noticed something for the first time, think it’s happening for the first time. These sorts of things have happened in Iran in the late 1990s and again in 2002-2003. This isn’t the first time. And Iranians were NOT using Twitter to orchestrate rallies — not the ones who didn’t want to be caught, imprisoned, tortured and killed. There’s no evidence that any of them did.

Which brings me to the sourcing side of Twitter, the trust factor. There was a lot of garbage floating around on Twitter–some of which might have been written by the Iranian government–and it was just being passed along as fact.

(Not that the MSM is always better at it. Despite their whitewashing after the fact, the MSM peformed abysmally during Hurricane Katrina, hysterically reporting rapes, cannibalism, sniper fire and Godzilla attacks in the Superdome when, in fact, none of that happened. It was Bigfoot, not Godzilla.)

And then there are those who were saying how awesome Twitter was for a year, but now that all these other people are on it, they’re like, so, totally over it, you know? OMG. These were the kids in high school and college who would get pissed off and quit listening to their favorite band when that band ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Finally, as has been pointed out to me by more than a few people, we just sound stupid when talking about Twitter. Grown men and women shouldn’t twalk about tweeting in the twitterverse in public. That sort of crap makes you look like a, well, a twit. (Bet you thought I was going to use another vowel in that one, didn’t you?)

How has social media changed the way you deliver news?

Overall, it hasn’t. It’s just given us another tool to use and, shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone, it’s making journalists think a little more about PR and marketing, because suddenly they realize the value of marketing their own stories, to drive more traffic, in hopes that they’ll get paid at the end of the week. Every little bit counts!

But here’s the thing about social media. It’s labor intensive. Some of our reporters got slapped around for being Twitter snobs and not following enough people. But the fact is, they’re busy reporting–making phone calls, running down facts, doing their jobs. And building up followers on Twitter and keeping up relationships on Twitter takes work. You have to have time for it — and the inclination. Or, like me, you have to be both a multitasker and a complete whore for attention.

Does the fact that you write about advertising and marketing impact the way you feel about the PR profession, either positively or negatively?

While you people — yes, I said YOU PEOPLE — routinely drive me up the wall and I’m continually amazed at how BAD some people can be at the job, I’m also now inclined to have more sympathy for the sort of crap you have to put up with every day, caught between demanding clients and hard-to-impress, overworked, underpaid journalists who may or may not be looking for someone on whom to take out their frustration. I don’t think I could do it. And I am impressed with PR practitioners who do the job, do it well and nail it.

What qualities/traits do you value when working with a publicist? What attributes have deterred you from working with a PR practitioner?

As in all things in life, have a sense of humor.

If you’ve ever sent me an email that says, “Dear Kevin, We think Adweek would love this story,” I’m likely not going to work with you. And if you’re sending e-mails with a subject line that says “Press Release Attached” or “Announcement from Company X,” rest assured those are going straight into the garbage and you’re going on the blocked sender list.

There are also those shops that engage in repeated cheap stunts for their clients, trying to drum up scandal or something similar. I don’t care if you’re Mother Teresa or someone who buys me drinks everyday and comes over to my house to play X-box (and lets me win): Don’t pitch me, because I’m not listening.

Don’t waste my time. If you’re in a field that’s going to have you in repeated contact with Ad Age, get the print magazine and study the masthead. It’s broken down by beat and everything, so you should know which reporter to call. And if we’re talking about me –me, me, me — remember, I’m not a reporter and I’m tied to a desk most of the day, editing or dealing with bloggers and such. So chances are, even if we’re like, totally best Twitter buds, I won’t have time to meet with your CEO when he’s in town.

It’s not because I’m a jerk — well, not only because I’m a jerk — it’s because a) I’m busy and b) since I’m not a reporter, it doesn’t do me much good to meet with him or her.

There’s another reason for this. As editors, we handle so much stuff we end up being generalists. I mean, the only thing I’d consider myself even remotely above average in would be politics. So we really rely on the reporters to be the filters. They live and breathe their beats, so they are more likely to know if something is new and exciting or worth pursuing.

There are times when someone pitches me and I’m like, “Hey, that’s so cool” and when I tell the reporter, the reporter is like, “Dude, there were still only 48 states when that news first broke.” And then I feel stupid and then I blame whoever pitched me. It’s a horrible, vicious cycle.

Don’t call me! E-mail me. And follow up via e-mail. In general, I’m not a phone person. But know that journalists–editors in particular–are called all day long by stalkers and nutjobs and conspiracy theorists. (I get occasional calls from a weirdo at a payphone promising an exclusive very important story, but he doesn’t say what it is on voicemail and doesn’t email.) I start to feel harried and paranoid myself after a while.

I — and most journalists — am sort of like that pain-in-the-ass significant other and our demands boil down to this: read our minds! Don’t kiss up to us — unless we’re in a mood to be kissed up to. Don’t call us — unless you have something we really want. Don’t be overly friendly–unless we’re in the mood to be friendly. Etc.

When it comes to pitching, it will also help if you think beyond your client and to the bigger market place. We tell this even to our reporters when they pitch us: “Why should our readers in categories beyond your specific beat care?” There’s so much information out there that readers fill overwhelmed, so it’s our job to synthesize and offer smart analysis. Otherwise, we’re just a news aggregator or wire service – which are fine things to be, but not what we strive for. We’re trying to educate, offer service as well as news.

So the job of reporters when they pitch us is to convince us that the 30 people beyond the company who pitched them will want to read such a story. Obviously, that’s not always an easy thing to do, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t try. Who knows where a pitch will lead.

One more helpful tip regarding pitching editors at Ad Age. We’re trying to run the Web and get the print book out on Thursdays and Fridays, so unless it’s breaking or important news, those are typically the days we’re most likely to get annoyed.

And, for all PR folks out there, read The Bad Pitch Blog!

As an experienced editor, how important is it to you to adhere to AP style guidelines?  Many people say that a shift to citizen journalism through blogs and sites like Twitter makes AP style irrelevant – would you disagree? How do you feel when a publicist sends you a press release that doesn’t follow AP style?

Everything — well, every serious thing — on Ad Age is supposed to adhere to AP Style, even the blogs. We’re going to slip on that, of course, because while our output grows every day, our copy desk doesn’t. And while I was once a copy editor here, I lost about 20 IQ points and forgot half the rules the minute I stepped away from the copy desk.

As far as press releases, I wasn’t even aware that some strive to write them in AP style. It’s a nice gesture, but as long as your grammar and spelling is solid — and please spell the name of your client right! — that’s about all I ask. But keep it short and jargon-free. Say what you have to say in one graf and stick the release at the bottom.

I don’t think Twitter makes grammar/usage irrelevant at all. In fact, I’d say that you’d best keep your Twitter speak out of your e-mail pitches. You wouldn’t use IM language — well, I hope you wouldn’t — in a pitch. Don’t use twanglage (or however you’d say it).

What would you say to someone pitching you over Twitter?

Twitter’s still very touch and go for me. Putting aside the fact that I’m usually NOT the first person you should be pitching at Ad Age. The first few times people started pitching me on Twitter, I was offended. I felt as if I was just hanging out at a party or a bar and a new friend was like, “Hey, by the way, my boss has this totally cool idea.”

I’m trying to remember my place in life — and also the main reason I got on Twitter in the first place was to sell my own book!

Rachel Kay

Photo of Ken Wheaton © Lisa Fain.