Last October, Chris Anderson of Wired magazine outed over 300 email addresses as spammers. In May, Lifehacker.com’s Gina Trapani started a PR Spammers wiki.

These two acts are symptomatic of growing frustration and anger by many people who perceive the PR profession of behaving like spammers in how PR practitioners pitch online.

Is the PR industry guilty of nothing less than being purveyors of spam? Is it about a lack of knowledge and skills in blogger and media relations? What role and responsibility do the database companies and the professional associations have in educating PR people?

Or is it simply all about a lack of common sense and taking care?

What seems pretty clear is that too few in the PR profession seem to be paying any attention.

On Wednesday June 11, 2008, For Immediate Release will host a call-in community discussion on FIR Live on BlogTalk Radio, in which you can take part if you have a point of view.

Members of the media database industry, PR professionals and media people will be part of an expert panel to lead debate and discussion of this thorny issue. Influential bloggers include Stowe Boyd, Susan Getgood and David Phillips.

The original idea for this debate comes from John Cass and Jason Falls; see their blog posts for detailed background information.

The live show will take place over the course of an hour on June 11 beginning at 10am PDT/ 1pm EDT / 6pm UK time. You can listen by visiting FIR Live on BlogTalk Radio or by calling +1 347 324 3723, which is also the number to call if you want to participate.

A recording of the show will be published as an FIR podcast (subscribe).

Add your voice.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

Related post:

• PR spam is mostly the result of being careless