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As the owner of a lifestyle blog, I receive a high volume of pitches and press releases from PR professionals every day. I must confess that I delete most of them without reading them. But sometimes that little one-sentence preview I can see before opening the message is enough to intrigue me. This time, that line was:
“The U.S. has one of the lowest birth success rates in the world…”
So I clicked on it, hoping it was something about ensuring prenatal nutrition and care. But the sentence continued on in a manner that made my face darken:
“…schools are testing four-day class weeks, and liberals want to take ‘one nation under God’ out of the pledge of allegiance. What is happening to our country?”
Dear PR agency, you have just offended me, and possibly half of the other bloggers you pitched due to political alignment. You see, I happen to consider myself one of those liberals, and I take offense when “liberal” is used as a dirty word. The next paragraph continued to derail, emphasis mine:
“Patriotic artist, Jon McNaughton, created a painting representing his fear, sorrow and hope for this nation titled, ‘One Nation Under God.’ He painted it in the hopes to awaken Americans and the government to return to the principles of freedom under the Constitution and recognize God as the source of these blessings. With over 60 figures and symbols in Jon’s painting, Jesus is holding the Constitution while the founding fathers and other symbolic individuals from the past stand directly behind him. This is to show the belief that God & Country should be united. To the left side of the painting are the strong Americans who hold the country together while on the other side are those who are weakening it.”
So this pitch has insulted me by assuming I would agree that “liberal” is a dirty word, and it goes on to tell me that I am weakening the country because I believe in separation of Church and State – like the Founding Fathers did. Also, by branding Mr. McNaughton as a patriotic artist, that implies that I am unpatriotic because I believe strongly that, for a country founded on the ideals of religious freedom, we should not be pushing Christian doctrine through government, because we have many Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, and agnostic Americans, as well as those of other faiths, all living in our country.
And for the record, “under God” was not part of the original Pledge of Allegiance. It was added during the Cold War in 1954 by Joint Resolution of Congress after being adopted as a change by the Knights of Columbus. The pledge was also initially composed to inspire patriotism as a method of selling American flags. It was written by John Bellamy – a socialist (gasp!) – who had wanted to include “equality” and “fraternity” in the pledge, but left them out to avoid displeasing school superintendents who did not believe in equal rights for women or blacks. (Feel free to let me know if I used the wrong word there, but I know that not all people with dark skin are of African descent, which is why I did not use the term “African-American.”)
Bloggers often lament the multitude of untargeted pitches we get that clog up our mailboxes: breastfeeding gear when we have teens, “How to Talk to Your Teen about Sex” when we have babies, outdoor adventure gear for homebody tech geeks, male enhancement products for women… Oh wait, that last one was spam. But it’s the same idea. Someone who is trying to market something decided to “spray and pray,” sending out an email blast to as many people as possible, hoping that enough would act on it, without regard for the actual recipients. This may work most of the time, as bloggers are just as likely to delete anything they aren’t interested in without feeling more than mild annoyance, but when pitching something fairly controversial, it would be a much better idea to vet the bloggers you would like to reach out to. I’m sure those on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me would react similarly if they were pitched something with a decidedly liberal slant that also spoke ill of their views.
I almost told the PR agency to take me off their mailing list completely. Instead, I asked them not to send me politically oriented pitches in the future. But how many other bloggers will they lose, people who may be a perfect fit for a future pitch they will now never see?
I do not want the comment section of this post to get into political debate. I am well aware that there are people who disagree with my politics, just as I disagree with theirs. We are not going to change each other’s opinions. I would like the focus of any discussion to remain on the soundness of the decision to send out an untargeted mass email pitch like this without considering the possibility that people may be offended by its implications. There is a reason many people avoid talking about religion and politics – because they are very heated, intensely personal subjects. That being said, feel free to preface your comments with something like, “I disagree with your politics…” but kindly refrain from explaining why. I reserve the right to edit out political and religious views if I feel they are derailing the conversation about business practices.
This post originally appear on ChristinaGleason.com in 2011.
That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.
