But where in London? (From News Shopper)

But where in London?

11:57am Monday 14th July 2008

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At the risk of sounding like a grumpy news editor, I feel I must have another moan.

Following on from my blog about people who ring up and introduce themselves by their surname, another bugbear of mine concerns press releases.

As the main contact for the newsroom I get hundreds of emails coming in every day.

My perfect press release would contain all the information at the beginning of the email (preferably not an attachment which I have to spend time opening) so
I can pass it onto the relevant reporter as quickly as possible.

The emails which take up far too much of my time are the ones which involve chasing up the information to see if it is in the News Shopper circulation area.

London is a big place. Simply putting that the event or story the release is about relates to the capital, rather than a specific place is just laziness on the part of the press officer.

How hard would it be to find out where it specifically is in London rather than me having to spend time emailing them back for extra information which should have been there in the first place or googling the place myself?

The other cunning ploy to make my job harder than it needs to be is usually done by schools who simply say the name of the school in their press release but with no location mentioned at all.

The News Shopper covers six boroughs across south east London and north Kent so there must be thousands of primary and secondary schools in our area.

So please if any press officers are reading this, do take five minutes before you send out a bulk email to the nation’s media to put in a specific location before I trash your email.