LIKE most journalists I spend a lot of time reading and deleting pointless press releases from public relations departments.
They can be pointless for all sorts of reasons. Some are so loaded with industry buzzwords they are indecipherable. Others are irrelevant, fired out to all and sundry with no focus.
Still more trumpet mundane or third rate achievements in words better suited to describing a Nobel Prize winning scientific breakthrough.
It started to get to me. That was when I stopped deleting and started collecting. Here are some of my most prized possessions.
Maximillian press publishers wrote to say they were launching a team building event which would provide a “participative platform” to “stimulate behavioural change”.
An RAF press release attempted to explain the objectives of re-organising its command structure. The changes would achieve “greater operational synergy delivering focused operational effects from the outset of a deployment” as well as generating a “more cohesive trained audience” and achieving “a more inclusive formation identity”. Something to do with the Red Arrows perhaps?
Under the bold heading “Braveheart Managers of the Future” St Andrews University said management academics had designed their own tartan which “embodies the essential skills of managers of the future”. Apparently, this blue, white and red check cloth represents “communication, persuasion and courage”.
Information technology is never particularly interesting unless something goes catastrophically wrong, but Strathclyde University alerted me to a new “infrastructure overhaul” from self-styled IT “lifecycle specialists” Esteem Systems which created two data centres in different campuses to provide “asynchronous and near real time replication and back up facilities with no single point of failure”. Thank goodness for that.
Political parties send out press releases by the score every day. Here are two of the most bizarre.
Keen to pour scorn on a government funding announcement the Scottish Liberal Democrats instead invited scorn upon themselves by describing it as “akin to Sweeney Todd offering a sticking plaster for a shaving cut he himself inflicted”.
The most bamboozling mix of metaphors came from the Labour Party who described “blatant hypocrisy” from the SNP as “using backbenchers to hide behind U-turns and act as smokescreens”.
My favourite for sheer enthusiasm is from industry body Fish4Ever who told me: “Sorry to bombard you with emails, but this is a special week for sustainable fish!”
Others spectacularly failing to identify me as an education writer included PMW Communications who said: “I expect you may be planning a feature on spring home interiors.” I’ve even had someone called Nathan asking me to write about tree houses.
My fervent wish for the New Year? That PR practitioners desist from seeking potential leverage in stakeholder relations by utilising collateral verbiage to facilitate the realisation of client benefits.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here