Why I used to write rubbish press releases

The first few press releases I ever wrote, were terrible. They were filled with superlatives, one actually used the phrase "the uk's leading...", and they contained plenty of industry jargon. The problem was that I really wanted to write good press releases and hit the ground running at my placement.

So before I started my PR placement, I read about 20 or so press releases from the PR Newswire service. I noted how they were written, the tone they adopted, the similarities and common phrases amongst them.

In short, I picked up a bad habit by studying press releases. My error was to assume that the majority of the industry would be good at writing press releases. One of my first posts here was on this very topic.

I got better, quickly, largely thanks to advice on PR blogs, notably Richard Bailey, Matthew Stibble, Copy Blogger and BadPitch Blog.

It's natural then that people come into PR with a view that press releases ought to be dull, corp-speak. Which means that I really shouldn't be surprised that PRs and journos are slamming press releases again. GettingInk has written two highly readable posts about headlines in press releases. Meanwhile Stephen Waddington has actually got an intern to count common words in 150 press releases. 68 from 150 releases used the word 'best', many had a headline longer than 30 words.

Have to pity the poor intern given that task though.