Why PR is rubbish

Some PR is good. I rely on good relationships with PR people to get a lot of work done. So the title above is a bit mischievous. It's just that so, so often, PR is so, so shit, and I've had several bad experiences just in the last 24 hours, which have made me feel all ranty. Let me share them with you:

• Fudging - Press releases about financial results that only give the figures they want to give. Profit is up 30% - from what to what? Revenue was £2.3m - but what was it last year? It's a private company so I can't look them up anywhere. Press releases are meant to answer questions, not raise them.
• Making stuff up - This one didn't happen to me personally, but similar things have on many occasions. I stumbled upon Ben Goldacre's record of his wrangling with Rentokil about their made-up figures about cockroaches on trains. This sort of thing is endemic in the British press (tabloid and broadsheet alike) - not because PRs are stupid (though many are) but because lots of them just don't care. They feel they have the right to make any claim they want - and don't bother talking to them about evidence or responsibility or survey methodology because they could not give a rat's arse.
• Rampant hyperbole - A press release about a fairly small-scale film competition, mostly involving amateurs, claimed to have uncovered "the most talented filmmaker in the country". This is stated as a plain fact. Later in the release (which was distributed immediately after the winner was announced), he gives an extensive quote about how it felt to win - a work of fiction. This is the sort of release that makes journos feel like they're in a fight with PR: they throw exaggerations, half truths, fudged numbers and complete lies at you, and you try to parry them as best you can. If you're not alert enough or are pushed for time, they'll get some hits in. Is that how it's meant to be?
• Obstruction - PR is meant to help journos get facts right, isn't it? Yesterday I was on the phone to a utility regulator in the UK whose PR person refused (yes, point blank refused) to tell me what penalties the regulator is empowered to issue on companies, on the grounds that I would probably use it to blow the story out of proportion. I tried to tell her that the information was in the public domain, and that I was only ringing up to make sure I didn't misunderstand what I had found buried in long legal documents on the website. But she had already presumed my ill will and incompetence and refused to elucidate any further. As a result my story contained a reference to what I think is the maximum possible penalty the regulator can ever issue (presumably only to be used in cases where people, like, die and stuff). It was impossible for me to write a proper story without reference to what the consequences could be. If the PR had chosen to give me facts rather than hiding them, perhaps I could have given a figure that she, I, and my readers would have preferred.

Dear people of the PR world,

Please stop destroying your industry and making journos hate you.

Warm regards,

ROBOT

In defence of the beeb

I am a defender of the BBC. My main argument in favour of it is that it is awesome.

Especially in the case of online news, the argument that the beeb should get out of the way in order to make life easier for commercial rivals is, IMHO, complete arse.

It's the same sort of confused claptrap you hear from record companies - who are also in the position of having had the business model they relied on for years blown up by the interweb, and resent the fact that it means they have to do things like think and change and experiment and take risk and possibly not make as much money than they used to. Well boo hoo.

David Mitchell put it nicely in a piece in yesterday's Observer:

I understand why the BBC frustrates the private sector – it makes business much harder for them. But I don't know why they expect the public to care, other than out of concern for the Murdoch and Rothermere families' finances. In all their whingeing, they've consistently failed to point to any other country where, thanks to the unfettered function of a free market, better television, radio and online content are available. On the contrary, the BBC is the envy of the world. Why are we letting its competitors, and the politicians they have frightened or bought, tell us that we can't keep it as it is?

I concur.

Is the web killing tabloidese?

Carol Midgley writes in The Times that the internet is killing the art of tabloid speak.

Because the web doesn't have the same constraints of space that print publications do, she argues, there is no need for all the mad little euphemisms and turns of phrase (tot, romp, dub etc) that sub editors have invented over the years, giving rise to such gems as 'Sex romp bus driver clears name'.

I think Midgley is right that the web will kill tabloidese, but I think it's about more than just brevity.

She describes tabloidese as "those words and phrases that red-top newspapers use because they are 'popular' yet have never been uttered in real life by a single person, not once, not ever."

The apparent contradiction she describes is, I believe, quite deliberate. Users of tabloidese are trying to perform a balancing act: sounding down-to-earth, while at the same time sending out the message: "I am a journalist. Look, I speak in special journalisty language. You should listen to me." It's a way of convincing the reader that you're their type of person, while simultaneously setting yourself up as an authority figure and drawing a line of separation between you.

This isn't just the case in the tabloids - the pattern extends to more subtle examples of journalese used in all sorts of media.

If you want to use language to try to set yourself apart from your readers, fair enough, but it seems frightfully old media. One thing that blogs and other web-based sources of information are good at is talking to people on a level. Instead of using language to identify themselves as something different and establish a one-way "I talk, you listen" relationship, they use it to join in the conversation. Because that's what media is increasingly about: conversations.

I think that's the more significant change in the way journalism works online, and I think it's the real reason why the web will kill journalese.

When Twitter-speak meets journalese

This BBC story shows what happens when journalistic convention meets 21st-century Twitter-speak.

The writer makes a brave attempt to incorporate some tweets from Sean Lennon, son of John, about the usage of some footage of his dad in a car advert. Here's the text of Sean's original tweets:

@bluediscuk She did not do it for money. Has to do w hoping to keep dad in public consciousness. No new LPs, so TV ad is exposure to young

Look, TV ad was not for money. It's just hard to find new ways to keep dad in the new world. Not many things as effective as TV. (Cont.)

Having just seen ad I realize why people are mad. But intention was not financial, was simply wanting to keep him out there in the world.

That's a grand total of 84 words, and as you can see it's not prime material for attribution in a news story. The journo had to use four sets of square brackets to reinstate the word 'the', and add all kinds of padding.

Seems like we're still quite uncomfortable with the Twitter vernacular. But as it fuels news stories more and more, we're going to have to get less precious about those missing definite articles.

Happy R-Word Day!

A Washington Post article brought it to my attention that today is 'End the R-word Day' – part of the campaign to "eliminate the derogatory use of the R-word in everyday speech". The website doesn't tell you what the 'R-word' is, of course, because that would defeat the object. But they do accompany the headline with a picture of a kid who looks like he might have a learning disability. As I write this I am genuinely not sure whether I am the victim of an elaborate internet prank here, but presumably they're talking about the words "retard" and "retarded".

A quick search of the page via CTRL+F confirms that the dreaded R-word doesn't appear anywhere on it, although that doesn't prove much, because neither do the words "rambunctious" or "recombobulate".

Now, as I was saying a couple of weeks back, words do matter. The people behind the R-word campaign are correct to say that "language frames how we think about others", and the word "retard" is used most often as a term of contempt or abuse – sometimes aimed at people with learning disabilities and sometimes aimed at people who are just being stupid. Like a lot of abusive words, it wasn't coined to be abusive - it has become so. This happens all the time - even the euphemistic "special" to describe kids with special needs, has become a term of playground abuse (and it's all the more cutting for its patronising, PC overtones).

But there are ways and ways of dealing with this sort of thing. The R-word campaign reminds me of Harry Potter's evil nemesis Lord Voldemort, who is studiously referred to as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by the terrified masses, until the goodies start to convince them that not saying his name only tightens the grip of fear that he has over everyone.

The "retarded" campaign (did I say that out loud?) is not seeking to ban the word – which would no doubt prove constitutionally problematic – they're just pledging not to say it. Which is jolly decent of them. But the idea of a high profile campaign where you make a lot of noise about a word that you refuse to say, seems oddly misconceived. You can even buy a t-shirt bearing the slogan "Spread the word to end the word". It's only a matter of time before someone asks you "What word?" How are you supposed to reply??

The irony makes my head hurt. And the absence of even a single humorous comment in the list of pledges on the site suggests to me that some careful moderating is going on at R-word.org.

The first outcome I can see from this campaign is a big temporary surge in the usage of the words "retard" and "retarded". I'm guessing the Washington Post, for example, already made a habit of avoiding the word "retard" in its headlines, but they made an exception for this story.

The word's been in the news a bit recently in the US anyway, so Google Trends results don't reveal much. But don't worry: R-word.org handily includes an 'R-word counter' to track the number of mentions on your favourite sites! And if the person who made that didn't realise how funny it was, then really, I despair of humanity.

Why the Tintin movie might actually be good

It’s tough being a fan of Doctor Who, because whenever you sit down to watch it with someone, it turns out to be shit.

The shit episodes chuck in everything but the kitchen sink, with all sorts of whizzes and bangs and over-the-top special effects, and try to evoke fear by having someone in a silly costume bellow that they’re going to “DESTROY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!!” That sort of thing might make five-year-olds want to hide behind the sofa, but it just makes me want to change the channel.

However, there are still those brilliantly creepy, low key episodes that build tension gradually, while telling a coherent story and showing a sense of humour about it all. The difference is in the writing: the great episodes are generally the ones written by Stephen Moffat, while the bad ones are mostly the ones done by Russell T Davies.

Which is why I was heartened to learn that Moffat is one of the writers of Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming Tintin movie. With Tintin being another of My Favourite Things, I had been dreading the big screen version due to misgivings about CGI and a general feeling that Hollywood is more likely than not to balls it up. But now my hopes are high. Moffat only did one draft before having to pull out when he was made exec producer of Doctor Who, but guess who they brought in next? Only Edgar Wright of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead fame! And Joe from Adam and Joe! It’s like I picked the writers myself.

Who’d have thunk. The Tintin movie might actually be good. 

Iran not co-opera– aaaaargh!

Reading this headline from the BBC website, I can't help but imagine the writer getting half way through then being dragged away screaming by a mad Iranian scientist. "IAEI!!"

If I'm not mistaken, "iaea" or something very like it is the noise that dogs make in French comic books when they have got their noses caught in barbed wire or been humiliated by a feisty cat.