Wired's Game of Whack-a-Flack

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Some public relations people are in an uproar after Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson published online the email addresses of 329 PR people who have sent him unsolicited email messages. "I've had it," he wrote on his blog. "I get more than 300 e-mails a day and my problem isn't spam. ... it's P.R. people." Angry flacks responded that Anderson's behavior was "childish" and "mean-spirited." Anderson says he was "particularly amused when PR people attempted to organize a class-action lawsuit against me--in my own comments! That's in addition to publishing my home address and hacking my Wikipedia entry." Even the New York Times covered the brouhaha and interviewed CMD's own Sheldon Rampton, who pointed out that the conflict reflects a "love-hate relationship" between journalists and PR people. "We are a watchdog organization whose sole purpose is to critique objectionable P.R. practices, and even we get spammed by P.R. people," Rampton added.