To have reported this in work today?

[Sunshineforeverandever]

I work in a press office. Someone (claiming to be a journalist, I can’t verify that he was) called us this morning with a media enquiry, he provided me with a booking reference for the customer that his article was going to be about. I spent a large part of the day diligently investigating his media enquiry and it turns out the booking reference he gave me doesn’t exist on any of our internal systems and we had no record of the customer (he gave us their name) being involved with our company either. I decided to pass this to our legal team to investigate as I don’t think he was contacting us in good faith. My colleague (junior to me) says I overreacted by passing this to legal to look into to. Was I being unreasonable? I’m almost certain his enquiry wasn’t genuine (a few more reasons why but can’t go into them on here).

[Tulipomania]

I've never, ever known a freelance journalist provide details of their commissioning editor! However they do usually say which publication they are writing for. They rarely provide portfolio links either, although this info is normally easy to find on google.

[MelodyPondsMum]

Not all freelancers would provide an editor and a portfolio link when they're asking for a quote.
Requests for quotes, sniffing around for stories, trying to stir up drama - are almost daily occurrences in a press office. And if it's an office accustomed to putting out puff pieces rather than responding to the media, then there should be a crisis comms policy for how to deal with potentially negative media.

[Novum]

@MindYourBeeswax

Any freelance journalist would have given you the name of the commissioning editor and the name of the publication and a searchable link to other pieces published.
It seems odd that you didn't have this information, had wrong booking information and yet your first activity was to spend time on a wild goose chase.
Why didn't you ask him for a link to the published online piece?

Not necessarily true. I've been contacted by journalists from time to time, the freelancers didn't universally give me this information, and were perfectly genuine.

[Acis]

@Sunshineforeverandever

He was claiming to be from a news publication but was contacting us from a personal email so I do plan to reach out to the publication he was claiming to be from to see if I can verify him. If I verify him then it means there’s someone out there telling journalists they’ve had a negative experience as a customer of us when they haven’t

Why don't you just contact them? You're not going to reach out your hands to them, are you?

[JamesBondOO7]

@Intothewoodland

I am in the same industry as you. I would possibly log as an adverse incident but would be unlikely to report to legal unless that's company policy.

I would presume the journalist was a freelancer (hence email address).

Let me tell you something re "legals" depts

Load of BS - if the claim appears to be less than the loss they won't bother, trust me.

[MindYourBeeswax]

Any freelance journalist would have given you the name of the commissioning editor and the name of the publication and a searchable link to other pieces published.
It seems odd that you didn't have this information, had wrong booking information and yet your first activity was to spend time on a wild goose chase.
Why didn't you ask him for a link to the published online piece?

[SnipSnipMrBurgess]

I work in an industry where we get daily requests for comments because a customers order hasn't shown up and they want to make a sad face for the papers.

We escalate to PR and Legal and let them take care of it. I would have assumed that's the norm, tou can't have any staff making statements on behalf of a company which you would have essentially been doing.

If your job is to make statements on behalf of thw company I would imagine there is a media policy?

[bedtimestoriesforbears]

With all due respect OP you may work in a press office but you are not a press officer as this scenario is basic.

If not - you need to understand Comms/PR a bit better.

Media/Press Queries are for affiliated media folks - if they can't prove it - then you move on and tell them to go to customer services or complaints.

If you (or more likely your firm/company) are behaving like this then you really need to understand what Comms is and what customer relations is - two totally different things.

[HotSauceNow]

Ok I will bite.

I’m a senior in house lawyer. And absent any major sensitivity you haven’t disclosed I would expect you, as head of press, to be able to handle this pretty standard press relations problem. I don’t see how any of this is something for legal to sort out for you.

If it came across my desk because you were panicking or covering your arse - and tbh it sounds like one or the two or both here - I would be politely but firmly telling you that there was nothing for me to get involved with at this stage.

[LIZS]

But it would have been a gdpr breech to confirm the named person was a customer to a third party. I'm surprised you were willing to even offer to check.

[pressofficehead]

Hello OP

If you smelled a rat there probably was one. If you are experienced in your job you get a sense of who is for real and who isn't quite quickly.

Could also have been
Data fishing
Money laundering
Hackers
and so on
Or maybe if your company does something 'controversial' (whatever this might be) a campaigner or investigator of some sort

Well done for reporting it to someone. If it really was a malign contact reporting it is the first step in any safeguarding of anything! But does your company have a head of security or a head of IT or something along those lines you can follow up with if you this 'journalist' turns out not to exist when you write to the editor tomorrow?

[caffelattetogo]

You sound very inexperienced - as head of the department, have you not had to deal with this before?

[NeedAHoliday2021]

read up on ipso guidelines before speaking to the editor - www.ipso.co.uk/media/1590/editors-code-2018.pdf

[Doris86]

Always best to report these things and discharge your responsibility. The legal team can then make the judgment whether there is anything to be concerned about.

If it caused an issue and it transpired that you knew about it and hadn’t reported it, then it would be your neck on the line.

[NeverDropYourMooncup]

Depending on what your company does, could he be fishing to find out if an ex has used your services? So if you'd have said anything about the customer, such as ''we have contacted Ms B and offered her a goodwill gesture of £500'', that would have given him information that would lead to him working out where she lived/worked/the car she drove/that she was in Bristol at the weekend/whatever?

[Whatonearth07957]

As a lawyer always better to over rather than under report especially if there may be an adverse media report that will need to be challenged and taken down.

[BirdinaHedge]

He was planning to write a story about a customer’s negative experience with our business. But we couldn’t verify that this customer (if the customer even does exist) he was talking to actually had a booking with our company

Definitely double (and triple) check that one!

[PodgePie]

The fact he doesn’t have a twitter presence and isn’t searchable on google sounds like he’s a time waster/trouble maker. Ignore.

[PodgePie]

I possibly would have asked the journalist for evidence this customer was telling the truth (proof of purchase, email correspondence etc) but failing that then yes, I would have spoken to an in-house legal team. Presumably their feedback will help form your response to it feels important?

[FatOaf]

...But if they said they're a journalist we would have to refer them to the media office anyway.

[FatOaf]

Why did you report it to the legal department rather than the data protection officer?

I might only be asking because hardly anybody in our organisation is able to contact the legal team directly. An apparent attempt to acquire data illegitimately would go through the DPO.

[sugarrosepetal]

Sounds like an abuser checking up on someone

[Caroffee]

It needed reporting to someone following your checks. That someone depends om company policy/due process.

[SpringGreenShine]

Oh goodness I always report when we get a client who is a journalist, you can’t trust people.

[Sunshineforeverandever]

@Tulipomania

Sounds like a consumer affairs piece.

Did the journalist tell you what publication they were writing for and the name of the column?

Have you googled the journalist's name? I know you checked Gorkana.

He didn’t give a column name but did give me a publication (which I will be contacting tomorrow morning) that he was apparently writing for. I did google him and found nothing