Lead us not into temptation

Resisting the seduction of clichés


(This post first appeared here in August of 2005.)


Public relations writers fall for them. Reporters are lured by them. Communications veterans across the spectrum succumb to the sweet talk of the ever-present, easily accessible cliché. No writing style is immune to these overused phrases, even fiction. The media biz coined a term for these expressions - "groaners." If you're looking for a surefire way to annoy your audience, take the easy way out and slip a series of groaners into your copy.

Newswriting.com describes a groaner as "a hackneyed, overblown, stuffy or just plain silly cliché that turns up time after time in news scripts. Groaners show laziness on the part of writers, disrespect for the folks watching, and a general contempt for lively English." I agree. When it comes to many of these euphemisms, I believe in taking quick corrective action. Arrest these overused phrases. Blindfold them, give them a cigarette and place them before a firing squad.

When it comes to groaners, seasoned journalist Abe Rosenberg does a great job of identifying some of the worst offenders, often heard in TV news broadcasts. Here is a sampling of groaners from Newswriting.com:

Area residents - “Shhh, Tommy, don’t play the drums so loud. You’ll wake the area residents!” Normal people don’t refer to their neighbors this way. Why should we?

Famed - “Mommy, mommy, I just saw somebody famed over there!” When did “famous” become a dirty word?

Lay the Groundwork - Doesn’t anybody “prepare” anymore? Too many writers cling to these phrases (“Set The Stage” is another example) when talking about politics, foreign policy, war and peace, etc., as if big phrases made a story important. Important facts make a story important. References to theater and construction belong in stories about theater and construction.

Motorists - Where have all the drivers gone? Don’t fall into the DMV Handbook trap.

Somewhere, some wordsmith is hoping that I'll ease up on folks who like to incorporate clichés into their copy. I'm not completely heartless. As a journalist and PR practitioner, I have fallen into the same trap.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If you want your copy to "sing," write as if you're holding a conversation with someone. Put your best foot forward. Work like a dog. Leave a lasting impression. In the end, your copy will be the best thing since sliced bread. Just do it.


Tags: Cliches, Writing, Journalism, Public Relations, PR, Media by Sistrunk

Priceless

Mastering the PR game (update)

Staying ahead of the pack

Public relations (or PR) is called many things - public information, community relations, communications, public affairs. But whatever you call it, its purpose is the same: to foster more effective, two-way communication that helps build relationships and shape attitudes.

Effective media relations - whether it is for promoting publications, services, or products - requires a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary approach. A well-crafted approach incorporates strategic media planning, marketing, community relations and public engagement. When it comes to publications, expert writing and editing, attention to detail, and understanding of deadlines are critical.

Understanding that the media is an audience underlies successful promotional efforts. Webster defines audience as “a group of listeners or spectators: a reading, viewing, or listening public with a vested interest.” For this reason, it is important for you to succinctly convince editors and reporters that they have a vested interest in your product – to inform readers, listeners and viewers why your publication or service is important.

It’s your job to identify what sets your product apart from others. Be media savvy. Develop and nurture relationships with the media, as you would with any other audience. If you work those relationships just right – the payoff is HUGE!

When pitching your book, product or service to news organizations, one size does not fit all. Take time to understand the media culture. Tailor your media pieces to conform to the formats of radio, TV, print and the Internet. Stay ahead of the pack.


© 2005, 2008 D. C. Sistrunk – All rights reserved.


Tags: Public Relations, PR, Media Relations, Media by Sistrunk

Thought for the Day

Be prepared to give more than 100%

Racing takes everything you've got — intellectually, emotionally, physically — and then you have to find about ten percent more and use that too.
- Janet Guthrie

Janet Guthrie's quote on racing could very well apply to working in public relations and journalism, particularly if you're serious about doing a stellar job. If your work calls upon you to toil in crisis communications, as mine does, it is hardly a glamorous occupation. It is hard work, time-consuming and labor-intensive.

If you aspire to work in broadcast news, my first career, be prepared to work long hours and meet multiple deadlines. Understand that there will be times when you must file a report on breaking news with very little information, but somehow sound credible.

The world of journalism is 24/7. Be prepared to work early mornings, nights, weekends, holidays, and 16 to 24 hours straight during a presidential election or crisis - whatever it takes to get the job done. Believe it or not, my PR work has the same demands. Can you say "sleep deprivation"?

For serious journalists and PR professionals, the world of communications is hardly a cakewalk.

Have you worked in a stressful professional? It doesn't have to be media-related. How did you cope? Inquiring minds want to know!

Tags: Crisis Communications, Public Relations, PR, Media by Sistrunk

Science and mathematics gain a new online voice

MIT offers innovative K-12 curriculum

Highlights for High School, a Massachusetts Institue of Technology website, offers free K-12-tailored course materials for use by teachers and students. While many universities have set up free, online video, audio, and print course materials in recent years, the MIT high school site is unusual both in terms of the volume of information available and its orientation to a K-12 audience. The online site is an extension of MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative. Details from Education Week.


Tags: Science, Mathematics, Education, K-12, Online Learning, Media by Sistrunk

Which comes first - blogging or inspiration?

Bridging the digital divide in developing nations

Technology meets poverty and lack of infrastructure


The digital divide between rich and poor countries is narrowing as mobile phones and Internet use become more available, but the developing world still lags far behind, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said mobile phone subscribers have almost tripled in developing countries over the last five years, and now make up some 58 percent of mobile subscribers worldwide.

UNCTAD said the revolution in information and communication technology was spreading to the developing world but said more had to be done to make sure poorer countries reaped its opportunities in growth and development.

However, technological progress could come at a price, as the Guardian reports.


Tags: Digital Divide, Internet, Computers, Technology, Media by Sistrunk

Blogging: The commitment factor

Tips from a writing guru

Georganna Hancock, author of A Writer's Edge, offers some advice for creative writers who long to blog on a daily basis but find it a challenge to do so. Read Georganna's post, Word Play for Writers.


Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Writing, Media by Sistrunk

A man without borders

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year marks the 21st anniversary of the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, first observed on January 20, 1986. Were he alive today (January 15), King would have celebrated his 79th birthday. Millions of Americans are remembering the civil rights leader and human rights advocate over this long holiday weekend.

King was a husband, a father, and a preacher. He was also the preeminent leader of a movement that continues to transform America and the world. One of the twentieth century's most influential men, he lived an extraordinary life.

To view a timeline of milestones in King's life, click here. Click here for a slide show that tells King's story through his widow, the late Coretta Scott King.

To truly understand King, this writer believes that one should read his writings. The King Estate has copyrighted his works. However, selected examples of his writings may be viewed online. Among them - the address King delivered in acceptance of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. The King Papers Project is housed at Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Journalists, historians, legislators and community leaders continue to examine whether King's appeal for peace with justice is as relevant today as it was when he was alive. Last year, an editorial in the Houston Chronicle attempted to place King's philosophy into present-day perspective in an editorial. Here is an excerpt from the piece:

Although he rose to national prominence fighting racial segregation in the South, many of the issues roiling the United States 38 years after his assassination would be very familiar to Martin Luther King Jr.

Before his death, the Baptist minister had denounced America's involvement in the Vietnam War, a daring stance that fueled the growing opposition to the carnage in Southeast Asia. He was bitterly criticized in the media and by government officials for venturing beyond the sphere of civil rights, as if that were the only area in which he was entitled to an opinion.

With the country now split by the bloody, open-ended struggle in Iraq and by the mistaken justification for going to war, it's not hard to predict where King would stand on the matter.

Americans debate the revelation that their government is conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans inside the United States. King had plenty of experience on that score. He was relentlessly wiretapped and trailed by the FBI. Then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that King was a communist sympathizer.

Just as he stood with refuse workers in Memphis in the last days before an assassin's bullet struck him down, King would championed the dispossessed evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, potent symbols of a race-based economic underclass that persists as a legacy of slavery and discrimination. The New Orleans nightmare that Katrina exposed indicates that the vision King enunciated in his "I Have a Dream" speech is not yet realized.

Like his role model for nonviolent protest, Mohandas K. Gandhi, King grew to be a world figure by embracing universal humanitarian concerns that surmounted ethnicity and religion. As he once said, "Evil is not driven out, but crowded out ... through the expulsive power of something good."

That's why the celebration of his life today cannot be limited to a single community or issue. African-Americans are justly proud that he rose from their ranks, but his life is significant to all Americans.

Nearly four decades after his death in 1968, some say "King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure - being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message." Writer Deepti Hajela explains.

Related: Preserving the Dream




Video: King's entire "I Have a Dream" speech





Tags: Martin Luther King, King Holiday, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Media by Sistrunk

'Priorities'

An example of good blogging

I just came across a thoughtful post on Dennis Fermoyle's site, From the Trenches of Public Ed. This is storytelling that comes from the heart. The post is called Priorities.

Who reads the news?

A humorous look at newspapers

(The following was sent to me by a friend.)


Who reads the news?

- The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run this country.

- The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.

- The New York Times is read by the people who think they should run this country and who are very good in crossword puzzles.

- USA Today is read by the people who think they ought to run the country but who don't really understand the New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

- The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country - if they weren't on a freeway, or playing volley ball, or at a Botox appointment or an audition - and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

- The Boston Globe is read by people whose grandparents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

- The New York Daily News is read by the people who aren't too sure who is running the country and who don't really care as long as they get a seat on the train.

- The Miami Herald is read by the people who are running another country but who need the baseball scores.

- The San Francisco Chronicle is read by the people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it. But if there is a country and someone is running it, these readers are opposed to all that the leadership stands for.

- The National Inquirer is read by people who are trapped in line at the grocery store.

Author: Unknown

Tags: Humor, Fun, Newspapers, Media by Sistrunk