After that, you have to ask what the PR person wants to gain from the whole enterprise. I know this is an unpopular view, but they want to push the agenda of their client, surely? And in that, how precisely are they different from spammers?

And building a relationship with someone is almost worse! I mean, how cynical a move is is to foster a relationship with someone purely to further someone else’s publicity goals?

I’m afraid I view being targetted by a PR person as a vehicle for their messaging—however nicely it is attempted—a deeply troubling and creepy thing. I appreciate that there’s a contract in place between journalists and PR people based on a relationship of mutual need, but that doesn’t exist between bloggers and PR (and even many journalists would be a bit uncomfortable with it). PR people have little or nothing to offer me, and even if they did I’m not for sale! I don’t understand why that’s such a hard thing to understand.