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The Journal Record (Business World Section) - October 3, 2000
Copyright © 1998-2000 Journal Record All Rights Reserved

Whack-a-Flack

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Journalists and public relations people have a bipolar relationship. They need each other, and they often hate it. And as the digital revolution has created a need for more technology reporters and, thus, more technology public relations people, the sheer mass of antagonism has grown exponentially. But as any good public relations professional knows, every trend -- even a negative one -- represents an opportunity to "position" a company within that trend. So to exploit the current season of discontent, one enterprising firm and its client have created the Whack-a-Flack Web site, found at www.whackaflack.com.

"Flack" -- short for flack catcher -- may be the most derisive printable word that journalists use to describe public relations people. Whack-a-Flack is a simple arcade-style game on the Internet that allows the player to nail flacks with their own poorly conceived news releases, folded into paper airplanes.

All of this would be irredeemably mean-spirited if it were not cooked up by one of the sort of agencies that reporters sometimes love to hate: Sterling Hager. With their client, e-tractions Inc., a small Web entertainment company based in Bedford, Mass., the Sterling Hager people concluded that they could attract the media by creating a venue for reporters to whack flacks. As the e-tractions Web site says, "This game was created to grab the attention of print media journalists." It sure has worked. Since the site opened early in August, it has been mentioned on numerous Web sites as well as in several newspaper articles.

The last laugh, however, may be on the journalists who play Whack- a-Flack. The game asks players to specify which firm they would like to whack (Sterling Hager is among the choices) and why. From those responses, e-tractions says it has generated a list of at least 5,000 e-mail addresses -- and what amounts to a database on how journalists view various public relations agencies.