Passive-Agressive Journalism

Ever since the beginning of journalism, when I'm told people read things called "newspapers" that were printed in the middle of the night and delivered to people's houses once a day, there has existed a longstanding love-hate relationship between the press and p.r. folks.
Reporters need to get information from p.r. folks and p.r. folks need to get press for their company/client. Reporters see p.r. folks as people who withhold information from them and try to hide bad things; p.r. folks see reporters as a dangerous enemy. But all of this goes on behind the scenes so Jane Deaux the reader just gets the news.

However, a WWL reporter has taken it upon himself to air his dirty laundry and throw a Saints p.r. dude under the bus for a minor piece of information.

WWL reporter Bigad Shaban was doing a story on some Saints fans who were losing their season tickets because their seats were being eliminated as part of a renovation at the Dome. So naturally he e-mails the Saints communications director Greg Bensel inquiring about which seats will be lost. But Bensel is out of town and says as much and then is unresponsive. After Shaban continues to e-mail with the same question, Bensel lets loose:

From: Bensel, Greg
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 9:17 AM
To: Shaban, Bigad
Subject: RE: ***WWLTV MEDIA REQUEST
Bigad, quick question…how long will this epic story run?? …are you guys doing a mini-series??…our ticket guy stanfield is in touch with everyone affected and his working closely with them…outside of breaking news and a you guys running a crawl during the daytime soaps, I think this story has been well covered…the sections are 635 to 645 last few rows…keep in mind that these upcoming improvements to the dome are and have been well documented for years, by your station in fact, and the game day experience and making sure our fans are our top priority, remains our top priority

While Bensel maybe should have just kept some of those thoughts in his head, he lets Shaban know how ridic he is being.

In response Shaban decides that he will copy-paste their e-mail exchange on the internet and write a detailed story about how he was blueballed by the Saints.
Really, dude?? You know Magnolia may not be an honors graduate of a state school, but I know a thing or two about fact gathering. I am ignored/rejected/insulted by p.r. folks daily. Yet you don't see me copy-pasting my convos on the internet and writing sagas of how I failed to get the story. Do you own/have access to some sort of telephone? Did you call Greg? Or anyone else for that matter? Did you try contacting people whose names were not Greg Bensel? Off the top of my head I can think of about 10 people who could have given you that information.

And what did you think was going to come of this? The Saints have no doubt black-listed you know. Your requests will receive lower priority than Lusher’s student newspaper.

Can’t wait to see what scoops you get when the season starts!