I want an exclusive, baby!

“Giving exclusives still can serve an important function in today’s viral media world, and even may be worth making a few enemies,” asserts Dan Primack in an article entitled How and when to give a media ‘exclusive,’ which arrived in this morning’s issue of  The Term Sheet, Fortune.com’s new daily email about deals and deal-makers. Primack was revisiting what he described as a “fairly contentious”  New England Venture Network (NEVN)-sponsored panel discussion last week with Paul Gillin over the practice of companies giving “exclusives” to select media outlets.

Gillin felt so strongly that such favoritism has no place in “the relationship game” of PR that the day after the panel discussion he blogged Are Exclusives a Good Idea? In a Word: No. Gillin’s rationale is that ”exclusives make one friend at the expense of making a lot of enemies.” He noted that journalists “tend to hold grudges against sources who favor their competition.” Nonetheless, he admitted that in “isolated” situations when a company has the chance to be covered by a big-name publication like The New York Times, it may be worth losing some friends for a scoop. (more…)