Wired editor in e-mail hell

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine, posts on his Long Tail blog a list of e-mail addresses from public relations people that he has now blocked as spam because they continue to send him information he’s not interested in.

Anderson wrote, “Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they’re pitching. Fact: I am an actual person, not a team assigned to read press releases and distribute them to the right editors and writers (that’s editor@wired.com).

“So fair warning: I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I’m interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that’s why my email address is public).

“Everything else gets banned on first abuse. The following is just the last month’s list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list. All of them have sent me something inappropriate at some point in the past 30 days. Many of them sent press releases; others just added me to a distribution list without asking. If their address gets harvested by spammers by being published here, so be it–turnabout is fair play.”

Read more here. He’s getting criticized by PR people for publishing the e-mail addresses because they will be picked up by others and spammed.