Excellent post. May I also add: if a reporter doesn’t include you in his/her story for reasons, move on. Seek coverage elsewhere. There are 26,000 news outlets in the U.S., tracked by LexisNexis, and countless bloggers. Don’t take it personally. It’s a numbers game. Don’t pester them.

As a reporter, I refuse to cover meat companies because I’m vegetarian. The video at Meat.org explains why succinctly.

The owners of some meat companies have accused me of being unfair and “question my ethics.” They contend I am “supposed to be unbiased.”

Unfortunately, being human means having a bias. And media outlets are biased. Fox News is notoriously conservative and MSNBC liberal. Macy’s and a laundry list of other companies have dumped Trump because they disagree with this views, etc. Marc Jacobs and many other fashion designers refuse the dress Melania Trump. CVS refuses to sell cigarettes. Amazon bans pornography. They are exercising their right to conduct business according to their values.

Yet, some people don’t think I, as a reporter, should enjoy the same privilege. One company’s PR person sent me this email a few weeks ago: “I would like to speak with your editor about this vegetarian issue. Please send me her/his name.”

I ignored her, expecting her to move on and pursue the 26,000 other options.

Then the other day, she sent me this: “Please send the name and email address of your editor or the person you report to at XXXXX.com. I would rather you give it to us than me have to explain to someone at XXXXX.com that you refused to provide it.”

Isn’t this like saying “The floggings will continue until morality improves”? She believes harassing me and taking the issue up with my editor will make me include her in my stories.

I’ve debated whether to give her my editor’s info to see how this works out for her. What do you think?