I suggest, if you’re not interested in the story, tell them so in a polite way before putting the phone down; a young PR with more than one brain cell will remember exactly who you are 30 years from now when they’re on the way up in the Bank of England press office and you’re struggling for stories in a backwater paper.

Most PRs are doing their job in the best way possible to pay their bills, and are contributing to the economy as well as to the national news agenda. They put a lot of time and effort into finding journalists new stories, and all they ask in return is an email address to send it to and a 5 second phone call. Politeness costs nothing – treat them with respect.

Slow, non-answers: Having worked for government clients before, I’d wager good money that the response was the client’s idea and not the PRs. PRs do not have a personal vendetta against journalists, there isn’t an inherent desire to withhold information. I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve requested a client provide a straight answer only to be given the kind of nonsense you got – sometimes for genuine sensitive political reasons and sometimes for no good reason at all. Either way, not much a PR can do about it, any more than you could tell and editor who asked you to change a story to go poke it and still be in a job.

Embargos: The FT is a law unto itself. It is the most influential financial media and demands to be treated a certain way. It’s a circle, because it holds a dominant position it demands exclusives and early news, and because it gets its way it keeps that dominant position. The ABI will need to maintain the status quo and, whilst I’m sure they’d like to keep you happy too, if it’s a choice between the FT and The Insurance Times, looks like they’ve made their call. I know nothing about insurance media so can’t comment if this is a particularly good move or not. If IT is more important to the audience than FT, they’ve got it wrong.

Contacts: How on earth is a poorly designed website anything to do with the PR? Honestly, do you think people want incorrect details posted? It’s an IT issue and in a huge organisation like Virgin Media, can you not see how difficult it would be for a PR to do much about it?

Press registration: As a member of the press you are privy to information not available to others. If this were not the case, any idiot could become a member and it would cheapen the standard of journalism. In some instances, this means having to register, so that companies can make sure they’re only dealing with bona fide members of the press. Not a fan myself but can see why it needs to be done in some instances. The problem has been made worse by bloggers as there are great ones that are not members of the press and others that are completely irresponsible and need to be frozen out. That’s nothing to do with them towing a line, it’s to do with factual accuracy and fairness.

So, whilst I believe that there are a lot of crap PRs out there, this article has done nothing to add to the argument. In fact, it’s downright lazy. Slagging off PRs is easy and because there are so many PRs and journalists it inevitably gets lots of people talking and raises the writer’s profile. It’s a cheap trick and hopefully people will see it as such.

So before you start throwing your arms up in the air at the shocking state of PR, try thinking how much of the situation is the PRs fault. Just because you can’t get what you want, doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the easiest target.

Remember journalists are not all whiter than white, and this kind of article just puts you in the same group as bad PRs. Don’t bring yourself to that level.