Words and communication

Among the latest batch of rubbish press releases, one that is, quite literally, “crap”

While compiling candidates for inclusion in my latest collection of Crap Press Releases, I was delighted to come across one about travellers’ diarrhoea. Crap… Diarrhoea…  geddit?!

If it were not for the literal “crap” connection I wouldn’t have singled this one out for mockery – it’s actually an interesting, informative piece, with well-referenced data. My only grouse with it is the headline:

“What are the British bringing back from their holidays?”

When you have a perfectly good news angle – the statistic that up to 40% of UK holidaymakers get the squits while away – it seems a shame to have such a strangely meaningless headline. I suppose the idea is that positing a question as the headline makes the readers so curious they open the email to find the answer. But that seems a risky move – readers could easily assume this is about duty-free purchases, and if they have no interest in luxury goods retailing, they might not bother opening it.

Anyway, on to my second headline nomination. This one isn’t literally about crap; it just annoyed the crap out of me.

“Don’t accept lifts from strangers – or Timothy and Judith”

First reaction: WTF is this about? And that’s not a “I’m so intrigued about this that I will straight away open the email and enjoy finding out” sort of WTF, it’s an irritable “why can’t these people get to the point and say what the story is?” sort of WTF.

Well, it turns out – but not until the second para – that Timothy and Judith are the names most likely to claim on their car insurance. The release lists the other most likely names too. A good, fun, story, but the advice about not accepting lifts from strangers, which is repeated in the intro, had me baffled. The story didn’t appear to have anything to do with getting in cars with strangers. It wasn’t till I came to start writing this piece that I twigged. Yes, of course, it’s saying you shouldn’t get into a car with anyone called Timothy or Judith because the data would appear to suggest that they are more likely than average to have an accident. Hence they might have an accident while you are a passenger in the car. Haha, I see, it was a jocular remark.

At least, I assume it was jocular – I don’t imagine the insurance company behind the release is seriously suggesting that the statistical risks of sharing a car with Timothys and Judiths are so high as to make it genuinely inadvisable. Or are they? I don’t know, and that’s the problem. The trouble with light-hearted approaches in writing is that not all the readers will understand the writer’s sense of humour and will consequently not know whether to take statements seriously or not. It asks the reader to think far too much in order to understand what’s being conveyed.

I would have gone with a more straightforward approach like “Timothy and Judith are the names most likely to claim on their car insurance”.

Anyway, for anyone interested, the next most accident prone names are apparently Antonio, Julian and Bernard for boys and Joanna and Clare for girls.

Here’s one I don’t get at all.

“Sparkling diamond is crowned the city’s new jewel”

Don’t bother trying to work out what it’s about, cos you won’t. The news here is that a bar called Jewel, the third of the chain in London, has opened near St Paul’s. Why couldn’t they just say so?

I simply don’t see what a sparkling diamond has to do with it. I could understand it if the bar’s name was Sparkling Diamond, but it isn’t. And in any event, bars don’t get crowned. Neither do diamonds. In what way has anyone been crowned? It just doesn’t make sense.

Meanwhile, the text is littered with hyperbole and jewel-related synonyms. We have dazzled [twice], opulent, fabulous, fantastic, decadent, delectable, twinkling.

Ooh, it’s just like Santa’s fairy grotto. Or like a thesaurus that burst, scattering synonyms everywhere.

The bar, in a fabulously decadent mixed metaphor, “well and truly stamped its starry mark on the metropolis”. I have no idea how you stamp a starry mark but apparently it can be done.

Maybe this kind of thing is what entertainment/hospitality media like. But there’s really no excuse for typos – too many apostrophes in VIP’s and mannequin’s, not enough apostrophes in venues, Savile Row spelled wrong, no cap A in Fifth Avenue. Yuk.

Well, readers, it’s nearly Halloween and here’s a press release with a ghoulish spelling mistake right up there in the headline. A major candle manufacturer announces its

“frightenly fabulous candles”.

It’s “frighteningly”, you morons. Oh, and candles “cast” a ghoulish glow; they don’t “caste” it, as your top tips for creating a romantic ambience would suggest.

There will be a ton more crap Halloween press releases arriving soon. I feel it; I sense it. I am on full alert.

Pic credit: S Fenton

Dreaming of a white (or black/green/red) Christmas: ‘tis the season for crap festive product promotions

Having only recently derided a press release with the meaningless headline “I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas”, (http://fwords.co.uk/2011/09/27/crappy-press-releases-of-the-week-more-moans-about-punny-irritating-and-meaningless-headlines/), I was delighted to receive another release with a headline referring to the tired old festive Christmas hit by Bing Crosby.

“Here’s Dreaming of a White (and Black) Christmas…” proclaimed the release from a tool maker. It seems they have both a white and a black edition in their multi-tool gift set, which is being marketed as a Christmas gift for the amateur DIYer. Well, it would have been rude not to use the title of a 1950s hit record as the press release headline, wouldn’t it?

Here’s the conversation in the PR department as I imagine it.

Over-enthusiastic PR: “Hey, d’you like this headline for our latest press release? Dreaming of a White (and Black) Christmas. Fab, isn’t it?”

More intelligent colleague: “I don’t get it – how is it about DIY products?”

OEPR: “Well, it’s a pun, isn’t it? You know, like the title of that boring song by Frank Sinatra or someone that really annoys everyone each Christmas.”

MIC: “Yes, I can see that. But what does it mean? Where do DIY products come into it?”

OEPR: “It’s a play on words. In the intensely irritating song from several decades ago, the singer says he’s dreaming of a White Christmas. We’ve got a white product, so what we’re saying, in a roundabout sort of way, is that our customers will be dreaming of a white Christmas too. And cos we’ve got a black product too, they’ll also be dreaming of a black Christmas. Clever, innit?”

MIC: “Mm, except what they’re dreaming of isn’t a white – or black – Christmas literally, is it? You’re saying they’re dreaming of getting one of our products. But the headline doesn’t mention our products.”

OEPR: “No, to be fair, it doesn’t. But the thing is, everyone’s heard of that mind-numbingly trite song by someone from their grandparents’ generation that makes last-minute Christmas shoppers run screaming out of department stores, so when they read our press release they’ll be humming along and tapping their feet, and it’ll be all lovely and festive! And they’ll all think how clever we are.”

MIC: “Wouldn’t it be more straightforward just to tell them we’ve launched some new DIY tools?”

Random editor, glancing at press release before pressing ‘delete’: “What’s this old shite? Another bloody pun about different-coloured Christmases. Sod that – has anyone got any news about DIY tools?”

Ooh, and hot off the presses here’s another company that likes festive colours. See if you can guess what this headline’s about.

“Choose RED… but stay in the BLACK.”

To me, that’s a call to join the Communist Party – or buy a particular women’s magazine – or a brand of perfume, without spending much money.

I was right about the not spending much money; this release is promoting affordable personalised handmade Christmas tree ornaments. “Spread Christmas cheer without breaking the bank,” it exhorts the reader. Where the “red” comes into it I’m not sure, except that one of the ornaments depicts Father Christmas in his traditional red outfit. Perhaps they realised that the ethical retailer and the tool manufacturer had cornered the market in green and white and black Christmases and were looking for a new festive hue to focus on. But wait, no, “there will always be a place for a little black number at Christmas” continues the press release. The company’s black snowman will “bring a smile to even the grumpiest amongst us”. Not me. I’m far too grumpy; I’ve realised I can’t get I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas out of my head.

Pic credit: David Castillo Dominici, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=3062

Twitter can get you sacked, so be careful what you post – ugly online banter can live forever

GUEST BLOG BY LAWRENCE SHAW, http:///www.http://collectiveinvective.blogspot.com, Twitter @LawrenceShaw

Journalists are expected, as a matter of course, to engage and interact fully with social media. Twitter has quickly become one of the single biggest global sources of breaking news.

With stories and seismic political events like the Arab Spring being driven and played out through Twitter, it’s not hard to see why desk-bound and under-resourced journalists are trawling the network regularly for stories.

The problem is that journalists are not simply using Twitter and Facebook to find and follow stories. Many use it as a platform to promote themselves and their work and interact with readers and viewers.

This is where trouble lies. Too many journalists willingly list and link to their employer on their personal Facebook and Twitter profiles. Even where the link to the employer is not made directly clear, or people follow their profile with the classic “views my own”, staff journalists everywhere are now laying themselves wide open to potential disciplinary action or even dismissal.

Many hacks fall into the trap of thinking that in our celebrity obsessed world, having a big shiny twitter profile and lots of followers will equate in some way to increasing their professional standing and gravitas.

Whether or not this is true, it leads many journalists trying hard to build up their number of followers.

One surefire way to guarantee piling on a big following is to be reporting live from some major event before the live cameras manage to get there.

But in the absence of this good fortune, the only other way to bump up the follower count is to tweet constantly on the big trending topics – and in most cases, say something controversial on those topics. In other cases, even the profile pages themselves are controversial – over sexual or over sensational – to try to attract attention.

All of this can all too often end up with journalists being hauled up by employers for appearing to sully the good name of the publication or organisation they work for.

I have dealt with a multitude of disciplinary hearings in the past few years relating to conduct on Twitter – and unfortunately seen several people lose their jobs as a result of that conduct.

Many journalists (and non-NUJ members) will read this and sniff, saying that they get on fine with their editors and are doing well so need not worry about a bit of ugly twitter banter.

But as many people I have represented will testify to – employment relationships can change overnight and very often, particularly in the smaller workplaces, the golden girls and boys can quickly go to being the dunce in the corner.

Facebook also brings with it many dangers. Virtually every workplace bullying or harassment case coming into my orbit at the moment has evidence involving some comment or status made somewhere on Facebook.

Colleagues you had counted as friends can have a nasty habit of copying and sending on those little barbed comments you thought were just amongst a small select group of people all the way up to management. Something similar to this happened to me in the dim and distant past, so I’ve had first-hand experience of this.

Regular readers of my blog will even know how we managed to expose the behaviour of the scabs on the recent South Yorkshire Newspapers strike by simply looking at their publicly available interactions on Facebook. Funny as it was, we should all learn from this.

I recently authored a draft set of points that I hope the NUJ New Media Industrial Council will adopt as formal guidelines for our members using social media, setting out ways journalists can use the technology professionally but safely in terms of protecting their rights at work.

In the meantime I urge all journalists to play safe online and try never to mix business with pleasure in the online world.

My basic advice is thus:

If you’re not happy with a picture or comment being put on a piece of paper and put directly in front of your entire team of managers to look at, then don’t say it ANYWHERE on the internet, even privately. If you must live out your entire life and all your personal interactions online – remember that everyone in the world could potentially be able to see everything you write and you should work on the assumption that a permanent record of everything you say will exist FOREVER.

Lawrence Shaw is a full-time official with the National Union of Journalists and a Labour party member; he blogs about unions, journalism and politics. 

Pic credit: Winnond, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1970

… and now my nominations for great press release headlines

Having recently mocked crappy headlines and intros used in press releases – those that don’t do their job and get to the point – I thought it was only fair to mention some good ones.

Obviously it’s much more fun to mock and deride, but fair’s fair so I’ve been keeping an eye open for examples of press releases whose headlines sum up the story quickly and concisely.

I’ve noticed that many of the better releases are from larger companies and organisations – those that recognise the value of good communications and employ qualified people to get on and do it.

Press releases from smaller firms are perhaps more likely to suffer from “gild the lily syndrome” – taking a perfectly straightforward story and throwing puns and literary allusions and other flowery language at it until no-one, least of all the journalists at whom it’s targeted, can understand what it’s about.

I suspect that the problem arises because small outfits can’t – or won’t – budget for media relations, so the job of writing press releases is thrown at whichever reluctant marketing assistant or office manager is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alternatively, the job is seized on by a senior manager who’s bored with doing the accounts and fancies that a bit of “creative” work will add some glamour to their day.

Anyway, here are a selection of releases that won’t drive editors mad trying to work out what the story is. If the story is relevant to a particular publication, the editor will know straight away and if it isn’t, no-one’s time will have been wasted.

From an airline:

British Airways adds First and business class to Moscow flights.

A good example because some press release writers would have leapt on the obvious opportunity to throw in shite puns about “flying high” and “to Russia with love”. This one avoided the temptation with a good, businesslike headline that tells you exactly what the story is.

From a recruitment agency:

Hospitals in the United Arab Emirates are seeking hundreds of nurses from the UK and Ireland.

Perhaps a little on the long side – might not fit in the subject line of the email on screen – but nevertheless, the story summed up in a sentence.

From an online pharmacy:

Innovative Health Goals Facebook App Makes You More Likely to Succeed.

Again, I know what the story is from the headline.  I’d have avoided the initial caps though – makes it harder to read.

From a catering company:

Caterer launches calorie-counted healthy eating range.

Excellent. The story in a sentence. Editors in catering, women’s, health, slimming and food-related publications can all see the relevance to them.

From another catering company:

Chak 89 and ASDA Join Forces to Cook Authentic Curries.

You might not know what Chak 89 is – I’d probably have referred to it as “Indian caterer” – but that’s quickly explained in the subsequent text and anyway you get the gist, that Asda is now selling proper Indian curries.

I can’t overlook though, the later use of a pun about spicing up mealtimes. Geddit?!!? Puns aren’t a good thing in press releases. They show what a clever, witty person the writer is – that’s all they do. Apart from irritate the reader. Clever allusions can be understood by those who are in on the joke but can often go over people’s heads because not everyone shares the same sense of humour – far better to stick to the facts.

From a charity:

Medical charity to roll-out credit card sized USB devices to hold travellers’ medical records.

Sums up what could be a fairly complex technology story in one easy-to-grasp sentence.

From a retailer:

Marks & Spencer Launches Online Maternity Bra Advice Tool

All I need to know, in a few words.

From a train company:

Eurostar launches its first pan-European advertising campaign

Says what it’s about and why it’s newsworthy. Job done.

From the Confederation of British Industry:

Retail sales lower year-on-year but pace of decline stable

Retail sales statistics and trends are massively complex – the fact that something can be up yet on a downward trend (downwardly up?), or down but on a kind of lessening downwardness (upwardly down?) – has never failed to do my head in and leave me rocking in a corner when I’ve been called on to deal with them – but this manages to get the nub of the thing in a few words.

Pic credit: Scottchan, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1701

Crappy press releases of the week: more moans about punny, irritating and meaningless headlines

My latest nominations for press release headlines that don’t do their job and GET TO THE POINT are as follows:

“I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas”

What does this tell us? It seems to be a corruption of a well-known song sung by Bing Crosby. Is the release something to do with Crosby? Something to do with music, certainly? Why the “green”? Is it about the weather – does it mean we’re not expecting snow this year? Who is the “I” who’s dreaming? Nope – I give up.

It turns out that the news is that an ethical retailer has launched its Christmas catalogue. Hence “Green Christmas”. Ethical = “green”, “Green” = like White but not. It’s a play on words! Geddit??!! Aren’t we funny!

For goodness’ sake – why not just get to the point, instead of making the reader play guessing games.

“Wishing you a Merry & Healthy Christmas”

Ooh, it’s an early e-card from a particularly well-organised well-wisher! No. It’s a carol? No, it’s a press release – about pillows, of all things. The angle is that memory foam pillows that help support the neck properly are thoughtful Christmas presents. Again, the writer, for some reason, felt it was best not to say so in the headline.

“Winter Wonderland celebrates its 5th year with a magical new Ice Rink”

This one’s not bad – you do get the gist straight away, which is that the well-known Hyde Park attraction is getting a new ice rink.

But this release misses a trick by using the word “magical” – what on earth does that mean? Does the rink do astonishing card tricks, or make itself disappear? Does it perform the Indian rope trick or cut itself in half? The writer is so busy trying to convey the idea of festive, romantic twinkliness that she forgets to mention until paragraph 3 that the rink will be the biggest of its kind in the UK. Now, that’s quite newsworthy, actually, but the fact’s in danger of being overlooked.

Ooh, here’s another one who likes the word “magic”. Guess what this is about…

“Now that’s magic!”

Go on, have a guess. No? The headline the writer was grasping for was “Celebrity TV magician [name here] opens new headquarters of local company [name here]”.

I believe the celebrity in question uses the catchphrase “Now that’s magic!”, which is presumably why the writer used it. It’s an allusion, you see. Editors who happen to be familiar with the work of said celebrity and who have a bit of time on their hands will put two and two together and realise that the release is something to do with said celebrity. But over and above that, the headline does little to tell us what the release is about.

Same goes for this next one. To its credit, it’s about neither Christmas nor magic so it comes as rare and refreshing fruit to me, but it still manages to drive me wild through its use of a pun. Puns are inappropriate in press releases. If the writer wants to be clever and witty they should do so on their own time, for an audience that has the same sense of humour. Otherwise, they are simply showing off, at the expense of the reader’s understanding of the words.

Here you go….

“Rugby Star Muscles Up”

What does that mean, do you think? My first impression was that a rugby player was interfering where he wasn’t wanted, then I realised that would be “muscles in”, not “up”. Of course, it must be something to do with the rugby player getting more muscled. But why is that news? Don’t all sports stars work out?

The story is that he uses the products of a health supplement company with “Muscle” in its name. Aha, it’s a pun! He gets more muscles with Muscles – geddit??!!!!. Oh, I can’t start laughing.

Writers should always remember their audience – it would be fine for The Sun, for instance, to use a pun like this because that’s the kind of thing their readers like. But a press release writer isn’t writing for Sun readers – he/she is writing for a cross-section of journalists, all of whom want to know from the outset what the story is about. The reader shouldn’t have to puzzle out what is meant; it wastes time and is irritating. This story would have been better headlined something like “Rugby star puts on 10 stone by taking Muscle Company’s vitamins” or words to that effect.

Meanwhile, I’m collecting examples of good, efficient, press release headlines. There are some. Will report back in a later blog.

Pic credit: Tom Curtis, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=178

Lazy writers who produce shit because they just don’t care about getting it right first time

GUEST BLOG BY MICHAEL LAROCCA, http://www.editormichael.com/

I was editing a company’s bid on a project, and they were inconsistent in how they spelled the potential customer’s name and their own company name. I am not making this up.

I’ve said this before. If I’m reading or editing something, and I get the urge to ask the author “Do you even care?”, that’s bad. Very bad.

If you’re writing a letter or bid, I suppose you can get away with slapping any damn thing on the paper and saying, “My editor can fix it. That’s his job.” But really, why would you do that? If you don’t care about the damn thing, don’t write the damn thing.

In this case, I suppose someone (not me) could approach the owner of the company and say, “Your bid writer just doesn’t give a shit. Fire his ass.” But since this bid was written by the company owner, kicking her onto the unemployment line probably isn’t an option. I’ll just fix the damn thing.

If you’re an aspiring novelist, you don’t have this luxury. You’d damn well better care.

Seriously. Many would-be authors send me half-ass shit, and they send major publishers half-ass shit, as if they’ve done enough and are entitled to be lazy about making it readable because it’s just soooooo fucking great and they are ARTISTS.

Nope. Not on this planet, son.

Do you know what happens to people who write shit, but care enough to make it the best shit they can write? The shit gets better, one day it isn’t shit, and one day it’s published, and one day it’s even read.

Do you know what happens to gifted artists who are too lazy to improve? They get rejected, they get mocked on Slush Pile Hell and/or my blog, they pay to self-publish or fall for a Publish America scam, and they wonder why nobody reads their shit. Shit they couldn’t be bothered to read themselves after they slapped it onto the paper any old way.

I can’t believe I’m even writing this shit. How can you NOT care about your own damn writing?

People are crazy.

P.S. The customer in the first paragraph is also too damn lazy to run a spell checker. I’m gonna raise my prices on her ass.

Michael LaRocca is an American book writer and editor and blogger who currently lives in Thailand. He has written nine published books and edited more than 300. 

In which I attempt to boost my Google ranking through devious means

I was trying to explain to a non-journalist friend what search engine optimisation was, and why it could be important to a freelance journalist in Redhill or a freelance journalist in Surrey.

“Hm,” she said, when I’d finished, “sounds like a load of bollocks”.

Obviously I hadn’t done a very good job at explaining why being search engine optimised could be of interest to a copywriter in Surrey.

But I can see why she might have thought so. I mean come on, it does sound massively tedious, doesn’t it. I could almost send myself to sleep talking about it. It doesn’t interest me in the slightest, other than in its potential usefulness to a copywriter in Redhill.

It might be bollocks, I conceded primly, but it’s bollocks you need to know. In other words, BUNK. Rather like how to check your tyre pressure, or how to bleed your radiators. You’d rather not fill your mind with such things but, unless you have someone else to do them for you, you need to have at least a passing acquaintance with the subject.

Anyone who’s still reading might have noticed I’ve been trying to SEO this very article. Yes, those magic phrases freelance journalist Redhill, freelance journalist Surrey, copywriter Redhill and copywriter Surrey are the cheeky ones I need to get SEOd.

I was delighted, when I did that most egotistical of things, Googling myself, to find that the F Words name appears as number 3 on Google. And Sue Fenton (me, not any of the rest of the clan I discussed in a previous blog) comes in at position 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. An egoist’s dream.

But Google “freelance journalist Surrey” and I don’t show up till page 7 – and of course no-one ever gets that far. As “freelance journalist Redhill” I get one mention on page 2, and nothing else.

For “copywriter Redhill” I’m number 2 on the first page. But “copywriter Surrey” is simply nowhere.

One’s not supposed to post web copy blatantly and irrelevantly repeating phrases like “freelance journalist Surrey”. Apparently Google frowns on such carry-on when it sends its little spiders out to crawl about on the internet.

But I’m fascinated, far more so than the subject warrants, to find out if it works or not.

So, sorry Google, forgive me this little transgression of the SEO rules. I’ll try not to do it again – after all, I’m usually too busy waffling on about steam rooms and cats and things. Which might explain why I show up on Google when people do searches on phrases like “Italian cookware” and “swearing at police”.

I’m not convinced that it’s vital to be near the top on Google if you’re a freelance journalist – in Surrey or anywhere else – I think potential clients are more likely to search on the NUJ or LinkedIn. But it all helps.

And a quick plug for WordPress – I know it’s SEOd, cos a couple of nights ago someone was looking for a blog post I’d just written – and she found it on Google, less than an hour after it was posted. Well done, WordPress.

Pic credit: digitalart, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2280

Exhausted but still writing: the happy fatigue of an up-at-dawn blogger

GUEST BLOG BY LORA ROSSI, http://www.thehugginghome.com

OK, I admit it. I am exhausted. I am tired. I am overwhelmed. In short, I need to take more of my own advice.

I started this blog as a fun little hobby because I felt I had a lot to say and I tend to express myself best through the written word. Simple, I thought. And it is simple. But it has now taken on a life of its own. Or perhaps more accurately, I have breathed life into it and my readers have breathed life into it and now it has become something that people – friends, family and strangers – actually follow. Cool!

But I have always been somewhat of a perfectionist. A little anal retentive, if I may. If I do something, I like to do it to the best of my ability and when I see momentum I don’t want it to let up. I don’t want to let anyone down. I don’t want to let myself down.

So I push. I push and I market and I social media like a madwoman sometimes.

Because I have discovered that this writing thing…this blogging thing…this connecting with others thing…well…I love it. I think I have found my calling in life – besides being a mother. That – I know – has always been a calling. And Lord knows I answered that call people!

But that is really all part of what I am oh so un-eloquently (is that even a word??) trying to say here. My callings intertwine. Being a mother and reaching other people – especially moms – through my writing. Writing about motherhood. About how wonderful and frustrating and magical and difficult it is all at the same time.

But as I sit here writing, it is just after 7:00am, my baby boy is playing happily in his crib and my other two sons are still sleeping. I got out of bed when my husband rose for work because I wanted to write. I needed to write. I actually need to sleep…but I felt I needed to write more. And let me tell you peeps, anything that gets me up in the morning like that…well…I must either be passionate about it, have no choice about it, or be getting paid for it.

These days, what gets me out of bed is my kids and my writing. Pure love and passion. I do get paid for some of my writing, and it is my goal to get to the point where this is happening more…but for now, I will just keep wagon-training.

Ahhhhh…but I digress. I am famous for that. Maybe if I stop getting so off track people would pay me more for my writing.)

So, yeah, I am exhausted. So much so that I had to look up “exhausted” because I can’t remember how to spell it. Actually, for someone who loves to write so much, I can’t spell to save my life. Honestly, I am better at math. And I know I have not caught all the little mistakes here on my blog and that bugs me. It bugs my parents too because they like to point out typos. If my mom could get in and fix my typos she would.

My parents are pillars of support. They are not telling me to be reasonable. They are not telling me to stop this writing silliness and go back to my nice comfortable life as an Association Executive making a very decent, reliable salary. No. They are actually telling me they have never seen me so happy. Too bad I may have to go back. At least for a while. We will see how that unfolds. But my parents are telling me to follow my heart. They always have and they always will. My parents are awesome.

So Mom…Dad… I konw tihs is sepelld wonrg, but you can raed it awynays, rirhgt? Isn’t it cool how out brain works? How, as long as the first and last letters are in the proper place, the rest of them can be jumbled up and out brains can still read the words?

I guess that is kind of related to what I am saying. Things in my life seem jumbled up. So much is going on. I need to take better care of myself. But, all this extra “work” I am doing..my writing, promoting my writing…it does not feel like work much of the time. It somehow makes me feel happy. Overwhelmed, but in a good way, if that makes sense.

But I do need to be careful to remain balanced. I sometimes get so wrapped up in being a mom and this writing thing that things like eating right, getting enough exercise, getting enough sleep…they fall by the wayside a bit and I have to watch it.

But I continue on, riding the wave, sometimes falling, always getting back up. Hugging my kids tight, playing my keyboard like a piano, sharing my heart with whoever wants a little piece.

And now, time for breakfast.

Lora Rossi is a writer, artist and blogger based in Canada. She specialises in parenting, family, kids and authentic living. Lora describes herself as “a rule breaker, a cookie baker, a lawn raker, an earth quaker, a morning waker, an ass shaker, a for heaven saker, a home maker and most of all a hug taker”.

Nominations for the crappiest press release headlines & intros of the week

Good headlines and intros are vital to a press release’s chances of making it into print. A good headline sums up what the story is about, enabling the editor to decide whether or not it’s worth reading on.

A good intro encapsulates the gist of the story in one paragraph. This saves the editor from having to read the whole thing to find out what the story is. It also means that if there’s space for only one or two pars, a time-pressed or lazy journalist doesn’t have to sub too heavily to express the key facts concisely.

Writers of press releases often forget – or ignore – these basic principles; they write irrelevant, punny headlines or put the gist of their story half-way down the release, where it can be overlooked.

Their aim seems to be to entice the reader with flowery language, to charm them with linguistic creativity. Wake up! This isn’t romantic fiction, to be lingered over and savoured in the bath – editors haven’t got time for that kind of thing. What they want is relevant, to-the-point information, and quickly.

Writing a press release isn’t a creative writing competition; it’s about conveying the most important and relevant facts as quickly and concisely as possible.

Editors make snap judgments on press releases. What is the story here? Is it relevant to my readership? Tell me NOW.

If the crux of the story isn’t clear from the headline, the email might not even be opened. Then, if the relevance isn’t immediately apparent from the intro, the release will get trashed. Or the editor will waste time ploughing through flowery prose to discover what the point of the story is, then have to rewrite it, and get so pissed off in the process they’ll be prejudiced against that particular company in future.

Here are some examples from the past week.

Consider this headline:

“Falling leaves announce the seasons [sic] of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.

What’s that about? Any guesses? This release is helpfully telling us it’s autumn. But we knew that, so why bother issuing a press release about it? It’s also telling us the writer knows Keats (though not well enough to quote him correctly). So what? Of what possible relevance is that to an editor?

The writer doesn’t get to the point until paragraphs 3 and 4, when he/she reluctantly reveals the information that increasing numbers of gardeners are using machines to clear fallen leaves, leading to record sales for a manufacturer of garden equipment. That should have been the intro; and there’s really no reason for quoting 19^th century poets in a story whose most likely outlet is business or gardening publications.

That one isn’t the only company yearning to convey the astonishing news that autumn is coming. This is the opening para of another release: “Soon summer draws to a close, the temperature drops and we get the urge to create a warm atmosphere indoors.”

So bleeding what?  Are you a PR or a weather forecaster? The story, that a well-known designer is launching some coffee cups and candle-holders, seeps out eventually but you get the feeling the writer would rather be doing Mills & Boon than this kind of thing.

The basic principles of writing press releases are similar to those of writing news, so many of the best PRs have come from a newspaper background. Others have not experienced the discipline instilled by journalistic training; they’re possibly the ones who try to attention-grab with a “creative” (long-winded and irrelevant) approach.

Sometimes, though, it’s the client’s fault. They love the idea of “getting into print” and they get all carried away and fancy themselves as JK Rowling, and the PR is too weak-willed or jaded to argue about it.

One can imagine the conversation:

Client: Not sure I like that headline – “Company XYZ invents cure for all known diseases and wins Nobel Prize for Medicine”.

PR: What don’t you like about it?

Client: Well, it’s not very imaginative, is it? It’s not going to win us the Nobel Prize for Literature, ha ha.

PR: Er, what would you suggest?

Client: Well, how about a few romantic allusions to falling leaves and damp weather; you know, let the reader know autumn’s coming?

PR (rocking, and moaning softly): Whatever.

Here’s another headline, from a telecoms company, that leaves us in the dark about what the story is:

The Smartphone fear factor

What does it mean? All this tells us is that someone, somewhere, is scared of telephones. Not so, as it turns out. The story is actually about mobile phone companies missing a trick by making their products too complicated for the needs of an increasingly important demographic, the over-65s. The old dears aren’t actually frightened of smartphones – they simply find them unnecessarily complicated and are quite happy with a simple, cheap, pay-as-you-go phone. The only fear factor operating in this scenario is the writer’s fear of of the effort involved in coming up with a meaningful headline.

Here’s another one that won’t get to the point:

Warning! Is Killer Water Hiding in Your Household?

I don’t know. I have no idea. What are you talking about?

Another daft question is used as the opening sentence. When is Water in Your Home at its Most Dangerous? For goodness’ sake! I don’t know! Why don’t you tell me? Go on, you’re obviously longing to!

The story here doesn’t start emerging until paragraph 4 and isn’t fully out of the closet until para 6. It’s that a London man has invented a device that prevents dangerous mould from growing in houses and infecting people with respiratory ailments. Could be interesting to business and technology journalists and local papers as well as health and science reporters – but would they bother reading the release having seen that headline?

Examples of good press release headlines and intros to come in another post!

Pic credit: Salvatore Vuono, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659

The Boys refuse to take their knickers off for “Let It Hang” Day: and other piglet-related news

The Boys in the Steam Room displayed little enthusiasm when I told them they ought to go without underwear this Friday to mark “Let It Hang” Day, an event being held in support of the millions of piglets that are apparently needlessly castrated every year.

The event is being organised by a Belgian animal rights group, Gaia, which says vaccination could replace castration as a more humane way of preventing “boar taint”, an odour released when sexually mature pigs are cooked.

Gaia wants men to go commando for the day in solidarity with the piglets, to persuade supermarkets not to sell pork made from castrated pigs. It is targeting men because they are best placed to imagine the pain of castration, especially if they have ever received an unexpected football or stiletto heel in the crotch. “Be careful before you sit down,” the group thoughtfully warned participants.

The group says women can help too by hiding their men’s pants on Friday morning so they are forced to go to work with it all hanging free. Or, as the Google translation from the Belgian charmingly put it, “[women] can help by their husband’s underwear to hide”.

None of the Boys seemed keen to join up. Tim avoided the issue by arguing that the phrase “Let It Hang” sounded all wrong – wouldn’t “Flop It Out” be better? Nick said anyway the organisers probably meant trousers, not underwear, as they were probably using “pants” in the American sense.

Rory crossed his legs and begged me to stop saying “castration”. He added that he had no intention of not wearing his undies on Friday because “if I said I wouldn’t, you’d put it in that diary of yours”.

Anyone who would like to join in can register on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221483921232834. And anyone who’d like to see how piglets are castrated without anesthaesia can see a film clip at http://vimeo.com/25771292

Meanwhile, here in England, in another piglet-related incident, Surrey Police announced today that it had released from bail four people previously suspected of having pinched micro-piglets from an address in Capel in March.

Four micro-piglets have been reunited with their rightful owner, but police continue to appeal for information regarding the whereabouts of the remaining animals, named Squiggle, Dotty and Spotty.

This tickled me; obviously it’s not funny when loved pets are stolen, but I found it quite charming that the police, who events of recent years have led us to believe are primarily concerned with protecting the interests of government and big business, rather than those of the community, are willing to spend time on tracking down a householder’s piglets. Sweet.

Pic credit: Tina Phillips, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=503

It’s not what you say, it’s who you are: my MP never tweets yet has 6x as many followers as me!

My MP has amassed six times as many followers on Twitter as I have – despite the fact that he never tweets! It just goes to show, it’s not what you say but who you are when it comes to gaining a Twitter following.

I discovered this when I decided to follow Tory Crispin Blunt (Reigate) only to find that he has not uttered a word since he commented “test” in September 2009. I and his other 352 followers are eagerly sitting by our PCs waiting for the next utterance from our parliamentary representative.

Blunt’s not alone in his lack of interest in the internet. His fellow Surrey Tory MPs Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell), Paul Beresford (Mole Valley), Jonathan Lord (Woking) and Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton), don’t appear to be on Twitter at all – though Raab is on Facebook.

Other Surrey MPs toy half-heartedly with Twitter; perhaps someone’s told them to do it but they’re not convinced. Kwasi Kwarteng in Spelthorne went through a spell of tweeting in the run-up to the elections in May last year but hasn’t uttered since.

Education minister Michael Gove of Surrey Heath has issued only 15 tweets, most of them last month.

Of the remaining Surrey MPs – all Conservatives – culture secretary Jeremy Hunt (south west Surrey), Anne Milton (Guildford) and Sam Gmiyah (East Surrey), are all active on Twitter. Gmiyah seems to be a particularly keen user.

I accept that being a social media user is not necessarily a qualification for being a good MP: Twitter is fairly new to all of us and we all managed our jobs perfectly well without it in the past. I daresay those MPs who don’t use it would say they are too busy handling parliamentary business or dealing with constituents’ problems to sit down and mess about on the internet. But it would certainly seem to be a way for politicians to raise their profiles and to communicate quickly and easily with constituents.

Be that as it may, I’m still a bit peed off that my 57 followers @susanfenton – actually not bad for a newbie and growing slowly but steadily all the time – can be so easily beaten hands down by someone who’s only ever tweeted once.

Blunt’s 353 followers pale into insignificance against higher profile politicians like Ken Livingstone, with 14,000, Diane Abbott, with 22,000, George Galloway, with 37,000, and avid tweeter and “cyber warrior” John Prescott, former Labour deputy leader, who has an astonishing 92,000 followers.

Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, also has 92,000 while Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister and leader of the Lib Dems, has 65,000. Boris Johnson, London mayor, outdoes the lot of them with 192,000. Interestingly, David Cameron has only 6,000 in his own name, though 1.8 million as “prime minister”.

As a newcomer, I’ve totally revised my previous opinion of Twitter as being an outlet for the intellectually vacant to talk about what they had for breakfast. Some do Tweet frequent updates on what train or café or airport they’re in, apropos of nothing in particular. But if you want interesting, intelligent, challenging or alternative views – and instant, informative updates on topics that interest you, you can easily find them on Twitter. Maybe more MPs should try it.

PS Have just spotted that @PhilipHammondMP, which purports to be the Twitter account of transport secretary and MP for Runnymede and Weybridge Philip Hammond, is actually a spoof. Do go and have a look – he says some funny things, like “William Hague wears underpants made of tweed. He suffers terribly with chafing”.

Pic credit: Naypong, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2617

Embarrassed by mispronunciations – and why I avoid buying French cheese

A friend of mine, who is something high-powered in financial services, made a bit of an arse of herself the other day when making a presentation to a bunch of financial advisers. Her typed briefing notes used the word “geographical” to refer to some new financial product – but her handwritten notes used the word “geographic”. Glancing from the typed version to her notes and back, she embarrassingly found herself unable to say either word and instead announced the launch of the new “geogoraphicorical” investment fund, to cruel sniggers from the assembled suits.

I was only partially sympathetic, since this was the same woman who once scoffed mercilessly at the pub quizmaster who mispronounced two popular French cheeses as “Bry” and “Cambert”. (Looking back, I see I’ve mentioned this in a previous post – shows how much of an impact it had on me.)

How we laughed, and K louder than anyone. This Bry and Cambert, were they tragic Shakespearean lovers, we wondered? Were they Victorian comic opera composers? Maybe they were a comedy duo like Morecambe and Wise, or Mitchell and Webb.

It must be a quizmaster thing; I was at a pub quiz the other week where the participants were stumped by the question “what would AOTP stand for if something was Orey and Assqueue?”

We puzzled over this for a while then I gave up and asked him to spell the words and he obliged with AWRY and ASKEW – the answer being All Over the Place. “Oh!” I said, light dawning, “awry!”.He gave me a funny look and said: “Yeah. Orey.”

Anyway, to return to Bry and Cambert, French pronunciation can be difficult. I once had to interview a French trade association leader (in English) about agricultural issues and he kept going on about the “Kutars”. Whatever these Kutars were he obviously didn’t like them – he got quite heated about them – but I was baffled as to what they might be, and of course the longer the conversation went on the harder it became to admit that I didn’t have the first idea what he was talking about. Kutars? Maybe some kind of boll weevil? An anti-farming protest organisation? His annoying next-door neighbours? The only thing I could do was nod knowledgeably and write down “kutars” every time he said it, in the hope that context would eventually reveal all.

When I got back to the office my editor asked if Jean-Philippe had said anything interesting about the agricultural quotas – I breathed a sigh of relief and managed to write a passably intelligent article.

Mispronunciations can rub off on the listener. I once worked with a French woman whose English was fluent other than her persistence in pronouncing “biscuits” in the French way, as “bis-kwee”. Since at the time we ate a lot of bis-kwee in the office, this method of pronouncing the word became pretty much ingrained in me and I still use it to this day. A similar thing has happened with cheese as a result of the quiz incident – if I’m not meticulous about buying Edam or Stinky Bishop or Parmesan instead, I know I’m going to end up offering dinner guests “Bry” and “Cambert” with their “bis-kwee”.

Pic credit: Rob Wiltshire, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1395

Anyone else fancy a blog swap?

Would any other bloggers be interested in a mutual exchange – ‘guest blogs’ on each others’ sites?

I tend to blog either about words and communication in the broadest sense, or humorous observations on topical issues and everyday life. If you’d like to try out this idea, get in touch.

Grumpy journalist seeks interesting assignments. I’m free next week! Don’t let my cats starve!

Today I completed a feature about a British exporter for an international trade magazine and tomorrow I’m writing some copy for a website designer who’s doing a groovy new site for a property company.

Next week I’ll be meeting a local small businessman who likes the nice simple WordPress sites I’ve created recently and might want one for himself.

But other than that, next week is stretching bare and challenge-free ahead of me. If I don’t get a commission to do something, I will get all grumpy and bored – and my poor cats will have to have their meaty chunks in gravy rationed, so they’ll get all irritable too, and take it out on the local mouse population.

If anyone needs any copy-writing, sub-editing or features, do shout! Requests to do features for consumer press particularly welcome, but I enjoy corporate and trade press work too.

This coming weekend is going to be considerably more eventful than next week and I’ll have little access to the internet, so if anyone does make my dreams come true and “gissa job”, it’s best to contact me on my mobile phone.

In which I am too easily flattered by spammers

The spammers have been out in force since last I wrote on the subject of ludicrously irrelevant and badly spelled blog comments. Is there a convention on, or something?

Anyway, checked my site tonight to see 73 new pending posts, most of them spam. It was a close-run thing but I’m always a sucker for flattery, so the prize for Best Spam Post of the Day goes to Jacki from the Phillipines, for her inspired “You put the lime in the cocnout [sic] and drink the article up”. I have no idea what you mean, Jacki, but I love you anyway.

Someone called Unity added: “You’re the grteaest! [sic]” Aw, thanks Unity – I’m in danger of getting a swollen head.

Here are the best of the rest.

Latisha, from Poland, wrote: “At last! Someone who undersatdns [sic]! Thanks for posting!” Ironically, this was a comment about my page on proof-reading.

Ellen was “super exceitd [sic] to see more of this kind of stuff online”. Frankly Ellen, you’re too easily excited.

Rocky from Brazil said: “Stay with this guys, you’re helping a lot of polpee [sic]”. That’s great to hear. I like helping polpee.

Dillanger from the Netherlands popped up to comment: “Now I know who the birany [sic] one is, I’ll keep looking for your posts”. Well, Dillanger, whoever the birany one is, it certainly ain’t you.

Janess from Poland told me: “The forum is a bigrhter [sic] place thanks to your posts.” Aw, and my spam folder is a bigrhter place thanks to your posts.

Raynes exclaimed: “Very true! Makes a change to see soemnoe spell it out like that.”

And it makes a change to see “someone” spelled like that, Raynes.

One Daisy, obviously a discerning reader, asked for “More posts of this quality. Not the usual c***, please.” You mean not the usual c** you read elsewhere, Daisy – or my usual c***?

Zaylin from Denmark wrote: “Ab fab my godoly [sic] man”. And I always thought the Scandinavians were good at English.

Keisha asked “Umm, are you really just giving this info out for notihng?” Yep, Keisha, you’re too easily impressed. Talk is cheap. I’ll talk bollocks for no charge.

Tommy in Russia said my page featuring an example of my (unpublished) fiction had solved his “problem”. Frankly, I can’t see how it can have solved anyone’s problem, other than warning them against having characters going to the pub twice in the same evening, through the author losing track and forgetting they were already there.

Susannah from Australia commented: “You are so aewsome [sic] for helping me solve this mystery”. This was a response to my post about what men really talk about (answer: toast). You never know, perhaps she’d actually read the bloody thing.

And Medford, commenting on nothing in particular, said: “I don’t know who you wrote this for but you helped a brhoter [sic] out”. Funny, I don’t know who I wrote it for either, Medford – we must be twin souls.

Pic credit: Antoine Henrich, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1046