PR horror stories from the road

When good journalists turn bad... Anonymous PRs share tales of press trip terror

Like I said in this month’s first email: we’ve all aired our dirty PR laundry in public. Unfortunately, though, PRs don’t get to do much of this themselves. Ranting about a journalist publicly isn’t seen as a very PR thing to do — they’re meant to be nice to us, right? Well, maybe. But it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t complain, so we’ve created a safe space for an anonymous group of PRs to share some of the wild stuff they’ve had to put up with on press trips. You know the stories you all hear from colleagues who heard it from another colleague who heard it from an editorial assistant? This is it, straight from the horse’s mouth.

We asked: What's the most challenging situation you've been put in on a press trip? 

The PRs answered:

• I once ran the length of a luxury train in South Africa (in Harry Potter pyjamas no less!) at 1am to go and drag a drunk and very persistent journalist back to bed as she was harassing guests in the observation car with overly personal questions.

• We hosted a trip to Mozambique where one of the European journalists who had actually wormed his way onto our trip under false pretences complained and was annoyed in the morning that the prostitute he had brought back to his room (at a very posh hotel!) had gone off with his wallet!