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Folks at Forbes are a mite amused by a pitch from the PR rep for LA.com, asking if the website's president and editor can meet with the magazine's Los Angeles bureau chief next week while they are making the rounds in New York. Reasonable offer--except that bureau chief Seth Lubove will be in L.A., where the Los Angeles bureau chief for most magaines can be found.
If you're not familiar with PR pitches, here's what Ruth Thomas of eLuminatePR sent Forbes:
Hi Seth,Online city guides used to offer content that was often just repackaged listings from a variety of sources. No wonder, then, that a lot of them no longer exist. Which is why the new online city guides, such as LA.com, are reinventing the format in order to survive.
LA.com, for instance, is more of a hybrid magazine and city guide than just a guide. It has a fresh, opinionated editorial voice (they hired a veteran style reporter as editor in chief) and delivers new information around the clock...it even has a blog, LA.COMfidential. The goal is to have people visit not just when they're planning a trip or a night out, but on a regular basis to get their LA.com "fix."
LA.com's president, Lynda Keeler, and editor in chief, Laurie Pike, will be in New York next week, April 21-23. Would you be interested in meeting with them? They can give you a "tour" of LA.com and explain what they're doing to make LA.com "relevant." They can also tell you about some other online city guides they think are getting it right.
If you'd like to schedule a meeting, please let me know what days/times work for you. I'm pasting more information on the site below.
Best,
Ruth Thomas