A critical American responds ...
It's time for one "poorly spoken and (sic) poorly read and mono-lingual (sic)" American - whose mother happens to live south of the Red River where we all know that "folks in the Lone Star state ... are clearly well below average in intelligence" - to risk the inevitable vitriol, name-calling & epithets, offer a rebuttal and share a few facts.
>Glenn, I did read it in completely,
Proofreading, editing and spell checking are important to the writing process no matter where submissions are meant to appear. Writing unworthy of even a cursory scan for obvious spelling and grammatical errors is not worth reading so far as I am concerned. Why share poor spelling and/or grammar in this forum or a press release when most mistakes are so easily fixed?
Case in point - What does "I did read it in completely" mean? Incompletely? What an interesting strategy, share what might be the whole truth while allowing oneself the future deflection of claiming it was a typo. And before you give me grief about involving myself with a discussion you are having with someone else let me suggest you send private mail when you'd rather not open yourself to public comment.
>the point I was attempting to gently suggest
>is that even headlines alone must be accurate, especially if
>we think people will read the entire thing.
A writer's task in any published endeavor is to offer something enticing enough, early enough in the read, to keep the audience engaged and, hopefully, finish the piece so the entire story may be shared. In press releases and daily periodicals a headline needs to attract enough attention to differentiate it from all the other releases and articles, respectively, without resorting to outright misrepresentation.
>Few things
>destory trust and credibility than to read something stating
>in a unabashed way one thing only to find when reading the
>details that the WHOLE story is a completely different
>thing.
I agree that a headline should not contradict the story, but a headline is, after all, nothing more than a teaser - meant only to draw the reader into investing their time to read the accompanying story. Many newspaper headlines are edited more for space and formatting concerns than they are for content. Some are even written by the editors themselves.
>I wish folks well in their search for sponsorship assistance
>but I have seen stacks of shameless inflated BS written as
>"Press Releases" which in the end can hurt the sport in
>general if businesses and agencies come to think what they
>being told is 75% hype and BS.
I doubt there's a business or agency in existence that doesn't realize a press release IS mostly hype. If cold, impersonal facts secured sponsorships then there would be no need to market oneself at all. The prospective sponsoring entity could determine that they want to see their logo on a rally car, gather the results of rallies and simply send a check and contract to the team they think fits their formula for success the best.
>Would the headline "Vanlandingham Wins Maine Pro Rally" been
>acceptable in July '95?
Since it's not inaccurate, why not? Certainly, it doesn't tell the whole story, but it's not supposed to. Like you, I wouldn't choose that headline for nothing more than a class win, but I can't believe anyone takes press release headlines seriously enough to raise a ruckus over it. Two letters could be added that would make that headline perfectly acceptable to anyone - "Vanlandingham Wins In Maine Pro Rally"
>I think not. Not for me, anyway.
>
>Headlines must stand up alone.
That is certainly your choice. So you'd prefer something like
JV Wins Class Over 18 Minutes Behind The Overall Winner, Almost 5 Minutes Behind The Production Class Champ And 9th From 30 Starters But Only 18 Finishers? Why would anyone bother with the rest when the headline appears to have told the whole story?
In this forum you have consistently done what you are accusing others of doing in press releases by ballyhooing a "top ten finish" that, while factually accurate, is FAR from the whole story and, worse, qualifies as ancient news now.
If anyone is interested, a copy of the results are available at
http://maineforestrally.com/mainsum95-res.html
Halley (battoning down the hatches) ...