This is another in the continuing series of randomly checking Canada Newswire to comment on writing and style. There were many instructive lessons in the copy below.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CANADA NEWSWIRE—Oct. 31
Attention Business Editors:
James Goodfellow joins the Board of Directors of Discovery Air
Original version:
LONDON, ON, Oct. 31 /CNW/ – Gil Bennett, the Chairman of the Board of Discovery Air Inc. (TSX A.A), is pleased to announce that Mr. James Goodfellow has joined the Board of Directors of Discovery Air.
PR Writer Improvements:
James Goodfellow, former Deloitte & Touche LLP Vice-Chairman, has joined the Discovery Air Inc. Board, said Gil Bennett, Chairman. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Editing, Public Relations, Writing
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Item in the Toronto Globe and Mail, August 22, 2008:
“Microsoft Corp. will try to transform its dry and humorless public image by employing the popularity and charisma of Jerry Seinfeld. The world’s biggest software company has signed the comedian to spearhead a major $300-million (U.S.) branding campaign that will be launched next month.”
As any Mac fan knows, Jerry’s desk on Seinfeld desk was a virtual gallery of Macs in the 90s. The show started with an original all-in-one Mac SE, and then featured numerous others as the show gained steam. I can’t believe I was the only one who noticed. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Jerry Seinfeld, Mac vs. PC, PR
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Democratic Convention Opens Tonight!
Win or lose come November, Sen. Barack Obama has forever changed America’s political landscape Campaigning will never be the same as the rules are being rewritten daily. Courting notoriously apathetic youth voters is no easy task but the Democratic nominee strategically employed social networking (Facebook, Twitter, MyBo), online videos (YouTube), email campaigns and text messaging (GOBAMA!!! LOL) to create hype and perpetuate “cool.” These tactics now being ramped up even more to best the surprisingly potent Sen. John McCain.
New-age tools have also been the backbone to his immensely successful grassroots fundraising drive. Altering a page from Karl Rove’s playbook, Obama’s team has assembled two disparate masses: the party faithful and the black vote. One hundred dollars at a time, his new communications tactics appear to be weaving a less corporate, more cohesive political web. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Blogs, Obama, PR, Web 2.0
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Rain on the Chinese Parade?
Amidst the pomp and pageantry of Beijing 2008’s opening week, one may be excused for an inherent reluctance to prematurely rain on the Chinese parade. This is, of course, a historic event years in the making, with lofty expectations on many fronts – human rights, the environment and press freedoms, to name but a few. The ensuing pressure on China to justify holding the Olympic Games has been enormous.
Ironically, in trying to ‘get it right,’ on the PR front the Chinese international “coming out party” instead has been a ruinous affront. They have pushed too hard, creating a glaring irony plainly visible on the Games’ austere veneer. In painting an idyllic picture to the media and outside world, the Chinese have forgotten their most crucial audience: everyday citizens.
By catering their message to the newsroom instead of the living room, they forgot an invaluable contemporary communications lesson: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beijing olympic games, Public Relations, social media, Web 2.0
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SOCIAL MEDIA IS HERE TO STAY
News flash: communications will never be the same. The social media revolution has altered the landscape of public relations. It is not apparent to most practitioners yet but it has happened. My students at Humber College know it and they are eager to embrace it if someone could just explain it to them. It is more than Facebook, MySpace,YouTube and Linked in. It is a way of thinking that changes the entire model of communications as it’s been practiced perhaps since Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays launched public relations as a means of communications during and after World War I. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: News Releases, Public Relations, social media
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BEFORE PR WRITER
It’s a new era for G.I.T. Doors and Windows Ltd.
SAINT-LEONARD, QC, May 14/CNW Telbec/ – The executive management team of G.I.T. Doors and Windows Ltd.is proud to announce the acquisition of Vitrerie Brière and its integration to G.I.T. Doors and Windows Ltd.
This association will allow the company to offer a wide range of top-of-the-line residential doors and windows in aluminium, compozit and PVC that meet the highest standards in terms of quality, durability, efficiency and design, as well as commercial window services. G.I.T. is a Montreal-based company that designs and manufactures its own products and installs them without intermediaries. The company has four showrooms that are located in Saint-Léonard, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Repentigny and Châteauguay. Read the rest of this entry »
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After we posted our first 10 Tips to Better Writing, we received a number of requests for the second installment in the series. Following on the idea that all writing mistakes are a collection of commonly made errors, here is the new chapter. Some of the suggestions are for better writing; others cover grammatical errors that are not terrible but make writing look uninformed and less credible. To wit:
11. It’s and its.
In the PR Writer blog about poor writing on the Newswire, this mistake was covered extensively. Because of the ease of making a typo rather than a grammatical error, this error appears a great deal. The rule is quite simple: its is the possessive, it’s is a contraction. While contractions are not always recommended in formal writing, they have their place, in dialogue and less rigorous formats:
“It’s a dog. It was its first bath.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: good writing, Rhetoric, tips to better writing
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Dear Friends,
On this, the dreaded 40th anniversary of the assassination of the remarkable The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is vitally important to remember what Dr. King stood for and what he accomplished. For me, Dr. King’s passing will always be inextricably linked with the death of my personal hero, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. RFK is the forgotten man of American history. He would have easily beaten Nixon, shortening the Vietnam war and Watergate would only be the name of a hotel and apartment building in Washington. Mostly, RFK stood for the reconciliation of the races, something which since then only Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seem to care about. RFK would have been proud of Obama and I am mightily pleased that Ted and Caroline Kennedy and other family members endorsed Obama, saying that he embodied the spirit of John F. Kennedy. They should have added Bobby, too. This is a column about words and I therefore excerpt RFK’s address to a black crowd on the night Dr. King was killed, citing that he too had had a family member killed. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: good writing, Martin Luther King, Rhetoric, robert kennedy
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As an aid to generating better PR writing, the PR Writer Extraordinaire blog will occasionally examine the good and bad at Canada Newswire. The first release contains numerous missed editing opportunities.
(Name removed at request of company) reaches milestone during Canada’s Fraud Prevention Month
MISSISSAUGA, ON, March 26 /CNW/ – (Name removed) reports that as part of it’s “Identity Defence & Privacy Project”, it has cracked its 500th case of internet fraud reported online since it’s inception in early 2007. This is an especially important milestone to achieve during March, which is internationally designated as Fraud Prevention month. The reports consisted of almost twenty-three serious identity theft claims and over 300 website spoofing and hacking attempts. Additionally, (name removed) received complaints of over 150 unique fraudulent emails requesting personal identifiable information and even a number of child pornography complaints. Read the rest of this entry »
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ANYONE CAN IMPROVE THEIR WRITING
After editing other people’s writing for a lifetime, I am firmly convinced that most writing flaws are based on mistakes that individuals make repeatedly. As a service to the world of writing and mankind in general, I hereby offer PRWriterExtraordinaire’s 10 Top Tips to Better Writing: (for Tips 11-20, e-mail us and we will forward them your way).
- Avoid the passive voice. This is one of the most common mistakes made in writing. Tip: every time you come across the word ‘by,’ it’s the passive voice. Even appallingly literal spell check can recognize this. The ball was thrown by John. No: John threw the ball. Read the rest of this entry »
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