We are delighted!

I've witnessed three occasions today when the word "obligated" was used. You may have an obligation. I may be obliged. But when are we obligated?

Being a writer puts pressure on oneself to spout prose so clean you could lick your dinner off it (which, incidentally, is all it's usually good for). Studying a Postgraduate Certificate in Writing - the capital letters denoting the importance of it (forget the proper noun rule) - adds to that pressure. It's almost too much to bear.

What is too much to bear is lazy PR. What is lazy PR? It's lazy journalism, but better paid. Lazy PR is when someone writes a story about a client, often a business interest, and persuades a journalist to print it in a newspaper or magazine and pass it off as a news story.

In a part of the world (North West Wales, capital letters not denoting any importance whatsoever) where the Rotary club's annual general meeting is hot news, finding something newsworthy is not difficult. So maybe in this relaxed regime of newstelling we could make more effort with our words.

How many times do you see, hear or read a direct quote from someone, which starts along the lines of "We are delighted..." or "I am delighted..."? I am delighted to report that anyone who's printed as saying "We are delighted" never said it. It's the biggest giveaway of a made-up quote you'll see.

Come on, PR people, let's be more creative! What's wrong with, "It's Thursday and I wish it was Friday"or "Did you see Corrie last night?" Forget getting the sales message across. Say it like it is.

This is where I reckon blogs come in. It's a place where people can rage against their PR-managed public persona and say what they really think. Imagine that? Richard Branson saying "God, I hate my beard and this damn sweater. Let me shave and wear a suit!" or Gordon Ramsay claiming "It troubles me that I come across as awfully rude, and all this shouting and frightful swearing is so ghastly. I only ever wanted to be a fashion designer."

Now that would be news.