Tuesday 24 August 2010

Useful Tips

This will amuse MW readers.

Lola

My latest blogpost: Useful TipsTweet this! Posted by Lola at 15:44

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10 comments:

Steven_L said...

I've so got to find some stickers at work tomorrow!

24 August 2010 at 20:10
dearieme said...

Long ago my wife used to write press releases. She despised journalists who simply ran them verbatim. On the other hand, the journos who had a go at rewriting the opening sentences would always, it seemed, introduce factual errors.

24 August 2010 at 23:28
Mark Wadsworth said...

SL, me too!

D, if I can paraphrase that: "Your partner has a job writing press releases, and while she appreciates seeing them published in full, it's always refreshing when a journalist introduces a new angle."

24 August 2010 at 23:59
Nick Drew said...

excellent

the average piece by Polly Toynbee should carry at least 8 of the 10

(I too have written press releases in my time and, provided you can mimic the journo-style [sometimes needs a slight variant for each recipient, mail-merge stylee] you can more-or-less guarantee to get your key point in verbatim)

25 August 2010 at 11:05
Umbongo said...

I notice Tom Scott cites Ben Goldacre as an example of the "good" scientific journalist. Unfortunately Ben is also guilty of uncritically using drivel tipped into the public domain. For instance, he has a blind spot when it comes to "climate change". He even uses the pejorative "denialist" description in this ancient but typical warmist piece of propaganda. Worse, for a journalist who made his name pointing out examples of "bad" science, in the same article he cites the realclimate blog as an authoritative source of scientific excellence.

25 August 2010 at 12:30
Mark Wadsworth said...

ND, writing press releases is great fun, not that I've done many.

U, thanks for that. BTW, seeing as the original Foreign Secretary in my Bloggers' Cabinet never showed up for work and you appear to have completed your allotted task of shutting down the DFID, I'm promoting you to Foreign Secretary.

25 August 2010 at 14:41
Umbongo said...

MW

Toiling in the mines of DfID has produced some gold - at last. Does that come with a peerage? No? Well, never mind, I'll accept the appointment anyway - with thanks. I look forward to an active future at the FCO which, based on what he has done so far, is more than Hague envisages. I think, among other matters, you can anticipate, for starters, a rather more robust attitude to the UN and a swift reversal of our stance internationally on "climate change"

25 August 2010 at 21:02
Mark Wadsworth said...

U, ta for accepting post, and no, I can't possibly give out peerages, you'll have to wait until you are chucked out of office for that. Can you put [leaving] the EU at the top of your 'to do ' list?

25 August 2010 at 21:22
Umbongo said...

MW

"Can you put [leaving] the EU at the top of your 'to do ' list?"

Of course - it's a part of making the FCO a "beacon" (remember those) department of state. Also, with the best will in the world and malice towards none, I will resurrect the recruitment policy of a couple of generations ago whereby the default position was (more or less) that anyone employed by the FCO had to be born here (or in a British possession) and have parents (and in some cases grandparents) born as British nationals: this will be rigidly enforced when recruiting clerical staff for British embassies. I will also disappoint wedding planners by stopping the issue of British passports as an alternative to confetti.

26 August 2010 at 12:02
Mark Wadsworth said...

U, that all sounds good to me :-)

26 August 2010 at 13:46

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