By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
October 18, 2017
I’ve had some unusual pitches from publicists and managers, but this one takes the cake:
Hi Jae,
We’ve just been informed that our main office has been in conversations with [redacted] in order to secure for you an interview with [redacted]. In order to confirm and secure this interview, [redacted] has requested the following items:
– Guarantee from you that the feature interview with [redacted] will be published in the Chicago Tribune or the LA Times
– Three options of dates and times in which you would be able to interview [redacted]
– Draft of the questionnaire/interview
[redacted] added that the reason why they request a draft of the questions and the guarantee is because in the past they have granted interviews and the results were negative articles or articles in small/obscure media and they do not want that.
Furthermore, they asked us to inform you that if the article is negative in nature, that they may take legal action against you.
Please let us know if you have any questions, the sooner we get feedback from you, the sooner we can get feedback from [redacted].
When can you sign me up for this?! I’d be crazy not to jump at the opportunity, yes?😑
Also, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of request…
Note: The photo above is an altered image of a concert I photographed a while ago. If you manage to figure out who’s in the picture, please rest assured that I’m not talking about him. 🙂
© 2014 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved
Right? Any writer who agrees to those demands isn’t a reporter, that’s for sure.
Spill the tea!
They are crazy. Certifiably nuts!
They actually wanted a guarantee that it would run in a larger paper like the LA Times/Chgo Tribune. But yeah, ridiculous all around!
I told them I’m a reporter, not a publicist, and that their demands were outrageous & unprofessional. I passed on the interview “opportunity.” 😉
I wanna knowwwww but at the same time if they would sue you for just not liking the article, giving away bad behaviour will definitely result in punishment >.<