Your PR Architect

News item provided by the Associated Press, repeated by a local public broadcasting affiliate : "The Russell Station power generation plant, an iconic landmark near the Lake Ontario shoreline outside Rochester, is being torn down." Russell Station photo by RChappo2002, via Flickr (Creative Commons License 2.0).  https://www.flickr.com/photos/rchappo2002/ Really? The "is being torn down" is Exhibit One in the case of the AP tearing down journalistic writing. Passive voice -- leaning on a wobbly "to be" verb instead of an active verb -- weakens any writing. Marketing communications and public relations agencies will cough up the occasional passive-verb hairball in news releases. For example: a release from the Del Prado law firm  relies on "has been serving" instead of "has served." This suggests that neither the agency or MyPRGenie has newswriting skill. AP and other news organizations shouldn't fall into the same trap. I...

PR.com houses a wealth of executive-written news releases. If you're a CEO with a do-it-yourself gene, you'll find plenty of friends here. Their writing's not brilliant, but someone at PR.com appears to edit them. The weakest element of the writing? Most rely on passive voice, or over-dependence on “to be” verb phrases. Unless you're auditioning for Hamlet, I'd excise any use of the "to be" verb phrase. A simple example: By Stephan Czuratis (Jazz-face) (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons Passive Voice:  “It was announced today that a new ergonomic drum stick is being launched by Chicken Percussion, Inc.” Active Voice:  “Chicken Percussion today launched a new line of ergonomic drum sticks.” A reliance on weak to-be verbs kills any energy in your news story. “It was announced…” and “is being launched” sounds as if everything’s after-the-fact. Remember, news releases should deliver  news – and in today’s 24/7 news cycle, immediacy (or conveying ...

Somehow the title "editor" has become a dirty word. The daily newspaper here (and other Gannett dailies ) recently reorganized its news staff. Titles with words like "news" and "editor" disappeared. That's a problem for public relations people who practice good media relations. If I want to pitch a particular story to a reporter covering the town of Brighton, I could look at a page of newsroom contacts , and find the right individual. Or an editor who'd be interested. Newsroom, By Thomas Schmidt (NetAction) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa /3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Today, it's a murky search. "Editors" have been replaced by Content Strategists. Audience Analysts. Consumer Experience Directors. And Storytelling Content Coaches. One staff member's new job title is Problem Solver. I'm not kidding. In the real world, that job was formerly "Consumer Advocate." And i...