Most journalists have a love/hate relationship with public relations companies and press releases. Here’s why:

You’re on deadline for a story. The phone rings. You pick it up hoping that it’s the person you’ve been stalking all day for a quote. The editor looks at you sternly and taps his watch. The person on the end of the line says: “Did you get my press release?”

Your blood boils because this person – and about 10 of their colleagues from rival agencies – rings you every week. They all waste your time but they don’t care. Now they can bill their client extra because they “made contact” with a journalist. (It’s like we’re aliens or something.)

Anyway, you want to say: “Um, are the phone lines, internet and postal system down again? No? Well then, chances are I have seen the press release you sent me in the post, by email, by text and by both carrier pigeon and smoke signal. Oh, wait. Does that guy hanging outside my window with a bunch of balloons ALSO have your press release? My goodness, I must read it now.”

Instead, you say: “Yes, thanks. On deadline. Gotta go.”

On a slower day, you might read the press release hoping for a small news brief or (highly unlikely) a story idea. Instead you find the most incredible prose littered with superlatives and exclamations: “ABC Company wins AWARD for super-duper, nifty parking spaces!!!!”

Wow, that really is newsworthy. Members of the public will suffer if they don’t know about the award or the incredible place where employees of ABC company park their cars. Stop the presses! I must run and tell my editor I have a front-page scoop and… I got it from a press release.

Do press release writers ever ask themselves: “This matters to us (for some reason) but does it really matter to the general public?”

It also seems that the people interviewed for the press release are VERY excited about the company’s products, too. Joe Bloggs said: “I couldn’t believe my luck when they told me I was the 100th customer to walk through the door that day. My prize, a new toothbrush, is just incredible! Thanks to ABC company I’ll never have to see my dentist again.”

Joe, get a life.

The editor of this magazine recently sent me a particularly hilarious press release. In his email he said: “As discussed, below is a press release bursting at the seams with superlatives and adjectives! Also note the use of colour, bold, italics and upper case. I would find this difficult to consider, simply because so much has to be cut.

I wonder if the people who write such press releases realise that plain, simple, direct and honest language often works best?”

In response, I decided to do a random scan of all the press releases I received in a week. My favourite release was from a well-known and highly respected public relations agency. It was less than a page long but it was crammed with the following words: wacky, wonderful, glamorous, renowned, unparalleled, outstanding, exclusive, craic, hype, scooped.

By the final word, I was so excited that I wanted to go right out and buy their product!!!! Back in the real world, I was actually so distracted by the press release’s exaggerated claims that I had to re-read it three times to get the message.

Basically, (most) journalists are not dumb. Their readers are not naïve. So why is someone at Public Relations School wearing an American cheerleader’s outfit and screaming to the students: “Gimme an A. Gimme a D-J-E-C-T-I-V-E. Now gimme another one and another one…I can’t hear you. Gimme an exclamation mark!”

If you’ve ever seen an American basketball or football match, you’ll know that all that “false positivity” is exhausting to watch. Reading something that is blatantly insincere is not much better.

It’s time for someone to develop a scrubber of superlatives, adjectives and exclamation marks for press releases. The software would weed out superlatives (super-adjectives and adverbs) such as unparalleled, best and most competitive.

Until then, I implore press release writers to stop insulting journalists with insincere phone calls and ridiculous press releases. Gimme real N-E-W-S instead!

Margaret E. Ward is an Irish Times business columnist and a director of Clear Ink, the clear English specialists. Margaret@clearink.ie

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