We PRs can write news stories too

I was pleased to read Victor Noir’s (Journalist, May/June 2008) view that the research covered in the article The Telegraph, it’s English Gothic, innit? provides some support for the NUJ’s efforts to resist attacks on sub editors employed in Archant Publications.

However, I am pretty mystified about your attitudes relating to the source of the information.

Why do you “groan” when you quote from — Yes, I wrote it — my “inevitable” press release? If it’s such a torture for you, why bother to cover the story at all?

I’ll tell you why — because a press release is a valid and important source of news which would otherwise not make it into the public domain.

I really don’t see why a newspaper journalist can write a news story though a press officer cannot.

As a former journalist and a long-standing NUJ member, I am committed to my union’s code of conduct. So it’s doubly frustrating when I come across this rather elitist attitude to my role as a press officer.

To be honest it’s usually the more serious journos who take what we do seriously.

If the ignorant ones miss a decent page lead in the next day’s edition, that’s their loss.

Mike Addelman

Sale, Greater Manchester

 

 

 

The Journalist is published by the National Union of Journalists