Now, I have to explain to the client why it happened and the fact that we did contact the reporter, that the reporter did have the client's press releases, that the magazine had just recently interviewed the CEO of the company and on and on. That still doesn't explain why the reporter ignored the company. We'll ask her but we'll never really know the answer. The one action we took when we discovered that our client had been left out was that we rushed to tell the client. It is better to get bad news out NOW rather than waiting.
Nothing is gained by waiting.
You have no chance to defend yourself. Tell the client and take your medicine. Then, get on with it and hope the next one goes better. If the same reporter ignores you twice, you have a real problem. But, that happens too unfortunately.