One of the finest classical news stories ever written was crafted 50 years ago on the killing of President Kennedy. Every writer of any genre can learn from it. Tom Wicker was a White House reporter for the New York Times. Nobody, apart from Oswald, knew this would happen. But Wicker was able to craft Read More
Month: November 2013
SEEKS: Brave client, must have great S.O.H.
Do you recall this poster campaign? It ran a couple of years ago, and is always worth looking at for a number of important reasons… Firstly, it is an honest ad. The writer at M&C Saatchi should be applauded for suggesting this approach to the client. And the suit who sold it clearly deserves Read More
A force of reality…
Last night I was lucky enough to see the new film Gravity. At the London iMax, on Britain’s largest cinema screen. In digital 3D. With 12,000 watts of sound… As you can imagine, I’m still recovering, in an exhilarated and post-traumatic kind of way. Today, I wanted to recall the experience, and of course pen Read More
Chinese reform point 39 looks good for western copyright and poor for western content creation
Buried in the 60 points which the Chinese Government issued on Friday after a mammoth session on reform was point 39. It will bring joy and woe to publishers of content in other countries. The joy is in the last phrase of the last sentence, here in bold: 39. Further transform State-owned, for-profit cultural institutions Read More
“Too much information.”
Actually, I think the precise quote is: “Too many offers. Too many options. Too much information.” This was just one of the many relevant points made by Nicholas Coleridge, President of Conde Nast UK, speaking at yesterday’s PPA Conference. Everyone in the room seemed to agree. The conference focused on customer marketing communications (and congratulations to Read More
Say it once
Good writing gets to the point – not like this sign that I saw recently. The speech bubble gets the message across. The text below is repetitive. And even worse it uses bizarrely formal language that is more likely to leave the reader scratching their head than anything else. What exactly is ‘a period of Read More
We all create content
Every single one of you is now reading these words on a screen. The content you’re reading (in fact everything you ever read on a screen) has of course been crafted by an actual human. Someone just like you. And you’ll probably be using this same screen to create more web content, documents, presentations, reports, Read More
Good news for shareholders is bad news for the business at Reed Elsevier
Good and bad news from Reed Elsevier. The good news is that it intends to buy back from shareholders £50 million worth of shares in the next 3 months. This will take its 12-month buy back of shares to £600 million. Stock markets happy The stock markets and analysts are, therefore, happy, generally. Many analysts Read More
So, do you communicate in harmony?
You don’t have to be a fan of “The Choir” to appreciate that many voices, when skillfully and professionally combined, can be truly uplifting and beautifully harmonious… Sadly, the reverse is equally true – the discordant noisy clamour of many voices trying to be heard is confusing, disorientating, and usually very unpleasant… So, maybe it’s Read More
Five ethics for content creators, including journalists
My focus next week will be on the ethics of journalism. The prosecution is making its case in the Brooks et al trial at the Old Bailey. And I have to lecture on journalism ethics on Tuesday. Ethics, journalism: it’s a joke, isn’t it It could be a short lecture: can you get ethics and Read More