Cutting-edge cliches and other gibberish

TO BEGIN WITH, I work in the world of media and public relations. My duties in that realm essentially have been playing pitch-and-catch with the news media. In 199, I paddled my way across the Styx waving goodbye to many years as a journalist to the shore of that place where I am now at.

What I do can pretty much be summed up as a game, of sorts: Pitch and catch. Specifically, I pitch stories that have some measure of news value to reporters and editors. And I catch stories from the media, seeking some unique perspective or localized angle to bigger stories.  

One aspect of pitching comes in the form of news releases. In the old days of ink and smoke-stained newsrooms, they arrived daily in the mail. Bundles of them. Every conceivable source with a word-generating machine mailed. Saturation bombing via the U.S. Postal Service. In today’s dizzying world of communications technology, they can be sent to multiple sources and locations merely by hitting the “send” button.

I won’t say there’s a distinct art of writing a news release; rather, it tends to be – at least in many corporate circles – the science of mass distribution of mass communication. God knows I have written thousands of them over these many years. Many dull and bordering on the fringe of non-newsworthiness, others interesting because of a unique angle. A true news lead and story.

When I write these things, I try my best to avoid using hackneyed phrases, clichés and worse – meaningless corporate buzzwords whose only value is to cloud a message or to mislead.  Or fall back on such words when saying what you really mean is too tough to admit. Though I sometimes fail at this, there are terms you will never see in any news release and embedded quotes below my name.

My Top 11 includes such morsels:

Value-added. Our product is so underdeveloped we have to offer our consumers extra stuff so they perceive they’re getting more for their bucks.

Adapting to new challenges. It means we’ve screwed up in trying to deal with these problems and surely will make these situations even worse. Not to mention we blew a lot of bucks doing it.

We are committed 110 percent. Math never was my bag in education, but I do know that 100 percent is the max. If you can fork over another 10 percent you’re skimming from someone else or you’re entirely delusional.

It’s on our radar. So are incoming bombers and ballistic missiles. So what’s your next step, Field Marshal Wile E. Coyote? Better that you watch out for those things that flying under the radar.

Think outside the box. Sure, let’s reinvent geometry. In some corporate settings, such thinking puts you outside the circle of influence. Or maybe slam dunks your career into that proverbial box that gets lowered into the ground.

This is designed to incentivize our employees. For starters, I’m not sure incentivize is a word. Possible translation: Our workers better find new ways to do more with less and be damn well happy with it.

Our leadership is talking off-line about that. In other words, we have no idea what the next step is and the last phone conference we tried to set up was derailed in our great analog system.

We will leverage this opportunity. Okay, we’ve stomped on a competitor just a tad, now let’s figure out how we can wipe them out completely and ensure we get 110 percent of the market share.

We seek to reap the low-hanging fruit. C’mon guys. Let’s just admit we have no overarching plan and probably will not develop one, so let’s grab what we can while we can before the big dogs move in.

The technology we have acquired is state-of-the-art. We know there are far better things out there and more on the way. But we’re not willing to spend the money. Besides, where else can you get an Atari 2600 at this price in a Wii world?

This innovation will go viral. That’s possible. So did the Black Plague, H1N1 and AIDS. And that Pet Rock craze in the 1970s sure had enduring value. What say we take a step back and re-think what we’re about to do, fellas?

I police myself as well as I can to avoid using buzzword gibberish. At the end of the day, it's an easy trap to fall into when writing news releases or other corporate communications.