Attending Red Hat Virtual Summit 2020 was fascinating and, at times, fun. But we could see how demanding journalists could have been frustrated. Here are two journalists' views of the experience.

Conference coffee is awful, but you choke it down because there is no alternative. Likewise, a virtual conference is no substitute for the real thing. But it's all there is, so you make it work. Virtual conferences are popping up all over in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. PR people love them as a way of keeping clients connected with journalists.

Reporters and editors love roundups, because it lets them quickly provide readers with lists of different companies providing similar offerings around a single topic, especially when that topic is timely (witness all the Covid-19 roundups lately). But PR agencies tend to dislike them, because they don’t get as much credit for a roundup placement...

[PR pro Amanda Orr writes:] Like much of the country, communications teams both in-house and at PR firms have been in a holding pattern. As we look at the Johns Hopkins tracker on a daily basis, watching the numbers of infections and fatalities climb, we knew (at least I hope most of us knew) that this wasn’t the time to send emails or make cold calls...