PR people should burn their thesauruses | Cactus advertising marketing communication design agency Denver Colorado

06.08.07: PR people should burn their thesauruses

I use my thesaurus like it's my right hand. In fact, the look up feature in Word is always open. I have a hunch that many PR professionals are the same way. Just scan a few news releases on PR Newswire and you'll see what I'm talking about.

When I read Eric Webber's article "PR professionals a disgrace to the language" in this week's Advertising Age , I realized this is really a problem. Sure, I've always been annoyed by superfluous speech and writing. I want people to get straight to the point and tell me what they're trying to say. But, reading Webber's article really hit it home.

As Webber wrote, "We're supposed to be in the business of taking sometimes complicated issues and putting them into language that is easy to understand. Instead, we're just as likely to take a rather uncomplicated message and put it into language so hard to understand that it ends up meaningless. More than ever, I think there is a need for style, wit and -- most of all -- clarity."

I couldn't agree more. When conducting media training with clients, I always tell them to pretend they're talking to an average Joe, a down-to-earth housewife, someone on the other side of the country. Avoid jargon. Be authentic and as forthcoming as you can. PR professioals need to do this too.

While wit and style are important, we should not sacrifice the message to be clever. We need to communicate in simple terms, in plain english. Avoid fluff. Strive for transparency, honesty, clarity. Be genuine.

So the next time I look up a word in my thesaurus (okay, so I've already done it twice while writing this, but that's a different story), I'll think twice. Am I sacrificing my message for clever wording? Or am I genuinely making sure I'm using the right word to get my point across?

As Webber put it, "Current market conditions have created an atmosphere of extreme personal dissatisfaction, and I propose to henceforth reject the status quo and instead pursue alternative courses of action."