Gossip

Hungry Writer Will Eat For Food, Read Releases For Cash

It's some time since Sniffer proposed his "Lunchtime Journalist Franchise Syndicate" - a scheme whereby he and his scribbler friends like Guy Kewney, would take it in turns to show up at boring press conferences and industry lunches ...

The scheme would operate on the observed normal function of public relations agencies, who are judged by their clients on the basis of how many writers show up at launch ceremonies.

Strangely, it seems that it hardly matters what paper they write for; Sniffer has attended conferences where the subject was time-share holiday franchise selling, but where hacks were welcome from sailing mags, IT publications, and even packaging industry journals.

So Sniffer decided to accept a small subscription from professional hacks, and in exchange, would undertake to provide free lunches and dinners for the journos, by providing "last-minute-dot-hax" services to PR people who'd not had the right number of RSVPs.

The idea was welcomed by a surprising number of professional flacks; but even so, it struck our packet tracker as something which was probably best treated as a joke. Not so: it turns out. It hardly matches the inventiveness of Niels Bjergstrom at the Information Security Bulletin, who has decided to charge for incoming mail.

Sniffer is available on 020 8809 0492 in London, for anybody who wishes to send a paid-for press release. In competitive spirit, the Newswireless Net has authorised him to accept 10% of any fees generated in this manner - the rest going to our favourite charity, the Guy Kewney Holiday Fund. And our thanks to The Inquirer for drawing this to our attention!

Mr Kewney is reported to be hungry ...