Taking a break

After two straight years of weekly PR Architect blog posts, I'm taking a break this week.

I hope you'll return in January, when I plan to resume this blog.  

Happy New Year.

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My chosen people are a little too choosy

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It's just me, I suppose. Or maybe not. I am Jewish, and I'm a little disappointed just now with our cultural tendency to talk about inclusion while failing to practice it. As a culture, you'd think we'd know better. The other day, I received an e-mail blast (with a few details obscured) -- and was asked to help spread the word of an event: By Fast Forward Event Productions, via Wikimedia Commons Dear Library Moms, Please join us at “Moms Make It, Take It, Over Chocolate and Wine” on Thursday, June 11, 2015 at Temple Beth Zion from 7 – 8:30 PM. The event includes making Jewish summer activities, a presentation on turning regular moments into Jewish ones, and lots of good wine and chocolate! What’s wrong with this message? I'm a Jewish dad. And I'm not invited. The message assumes that Jewish households in our community rely on moms alone to ensure a heritage-rich upbringing. It infers that the fathers have a diminished role in providing a Jewis...
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Readers get the (drive) shaft in motorsports coverage

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In mid-August, the U.S.'s premier auto racing sport will compete at a road racing course in Watkins Glen, NY. NASCAR's brutish Cup series cars will race in this rural community Aug. 20.  May 2023, Charlotte Motor Speedway. (c) DKassnoff, 2023. But, don't expect  The New York Times  to cover NASCAR before then. The newspaper's sports section -- now outsourced to The Athletic, its sportsbook subsidiary -- hasn't covered NASCAR since July 2. That's when NASCAR's drivers competed on the rain-soaked streets of Chicago. The Times provided no coverage of their July 30 race in Richmond, VA, or any NASCAR race since early July. The Times  has focused its motorsports coverage on Formula 1 racing. These are the expensive, open-wheeled, high performance racing teams once called Grand Prix. This class of racing is controlled by another media company: John Malone's Liberty Media, which purchased Formula 1 in 2017 and returned it to profitability. Visit the Times ...
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Banging the drum for active voice

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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 ...
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