Somebody emailed me with an interesting tidbit today. They’re doing PR for a tech company that’s attending a large technology conference in Europe. The company, one of many exhibitors, has paid well over US $5,000 to attend.
Over 150 technology journalists are coming to the event. The conference, in a very European sort of decision, offered journalists the opportunity to decline to include their information in the conference media list. 80% of journalists declined. This means that attending companies don’t know who 80% of the journalists attending the event are.
This is reflective of a peculiar double-standard in journalism. It’s their job to cover the conference. It’s their job to receive and consider media information from companies. After all, it’s not like they’re investigative journalists uncovering corrupt politicians–95% of their news is placed by companies. If they’re too lazy to sort through their email prior to the conference, perhaps they should consider another career.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I agree that in this case (unlike, as you state, investigative journalism), it’s pretty lame so many declined – my question is, was the abillity of the journos to decline listing made clear before the exhibitor plunked down their $5k?
Not sure what the problem is here other than giving people the option to be lazy almost always ensure that they will be lazy. Journalists are no different.
By opting out, the journalists force the attending companies to do more to capture their attention. They may be hoping for more expensive gifts, dinner parties, private receptions and the like. They may prefer to get on more targeted lists, instead of having the entire attendee list spam them.
Journalists get a lot of spam. I can’t believe how many pitches I get and I wouldn’t consider myself a full-time journalist.