I have a blog. It’s small, but the major league bloggers in our sphere read it. I want to do a text-based interview (i.e. I send questions, said person answers) with a certain investigative journalist/HuffPo blogger; even though I’m not a big-shot journalist, I think she might take an interest in the subject I have. The person has a publicist one is supposed to go to for press inquiries. Should I go to the publicist or the journalist?
Are you asking whether the publicist will reject your inquiry automatically because you’re a blogger and not a NY Times reporter? Very unlikely. Your ability to get the interview will most likely depend on how much of the journalist’s time you’re asking for, and perhaps by what the publicist can glean about you from a 60 perusal of your blog. The fact that this person has a publicist suggests that they get a lot of requests and their time is limited. Probably more likely to succeed if your subject has a book or something else to promote and your interview is on topic.
Ignoring the publicist and going direct to the journalist will almost surely mean you’ll be ignored, unless that journalist happens to be a fan of your blog.