I read with interest this week another PR-journalist exchange on Twitter about how PRs are awful and generally dim and/or incompetent, and can't help but feel as an industry, we get a bit of a rough ride from those on the other side of the fence.

Granted, to tar all journalists and media-bods with the same brush would be no different to the comments that come PRs' way on a regular basis, but there tends to be a continuous repetition of quibbles and bandwagon jumping on the PR-bashing front.

Yes, there are PRs who are a bit useless, don't know their way around a press list, and do minimal research before pitching into journalists who have inboxes bursting at the seams. And not forgetting the classic "just calling to check you got my press release".

Some of the time, these are genuine newbie mistakes, and everyone has at least one PR howler they've made, and those who make these mistakes repeatedly through sheer laziness or incompetence should be brought up on it. But can all journalists say they've never made a mistake in something they've done or a story they've published?

Let's not forget Piers Morgan's famous sacking from the Mirror for authorising the publication of pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners that were found to be fake. And for those at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal, they would probably agree that that wasn't a high point in their careers.

In any job there are a number of people who are quite frankly a bit useless, and have no idea what they're doing, not just in PR, so it's far from fair to give us all the same short shrift. It would be the equivalent of me saying that all journalists are grumpy and abusive on the phone - not true by a long shot.

A key part of our job as PRs (without sounding too cheesy) is to develop relationships with journalists, know what their preferences are and generally make their jobs a lot easier with interesting stories and clients. For those we don't have the relationships with, we should make the effort to do some research about their specialties and publications to start things off on the right foot.

From my own experience, the majority of PRs work their behinds off to make sure that we don't waste journalists' time with sloppy and irrelevant pitches. It might be a slightly controversial statement, but journalists benefit from PRs as much as we do from them covering our clients and it's one of the most important part of our jobs to make sure journalists (as well as our clients) are happy.

So maybe next time, don't jump on the bandwagon so hastily everyone?

Erin