Perfect Press Coverage

Perfect Press Coverage ©

By Michael Casey

I was going to call this Perfect Press Person, but that would have been too much alliteration, perfect for school teachers perhaps and their exam taking students, or bloody bastards as they are illiterately called in the Staff Room. It was just a thought, you see I’ve been watching a few press conferences on tv lately, as we all have, and one guy stands out, the problem is though that he sounds like a Cartoon.

He knows who he is and if I were to tell you his name I would immediately insert my opinion into all your brains, and you would never get it out again. You know like the Emperor’s New Clothes, once mentioned there is no turning back. If you say Michael Casey looks like George Clooney immediately you will always see me instead of him, though my wife says I look more like Huw Edwards the BBC news reader. I am a better looking than the real George Clooney, you can only tell us apart by the coffee,  I drink Kenco Rappor instant with semi skimmed milk, no sugar.

As for this press person, he really does sound like a cartoon, not like Officer Dibble more like a Wacky Races character, I cannot remember which one exactly as Peppa Pig has overtaken our telly. Listen to his voice next time he’s on tv, and he is on most days, and close your eyes as he speaks, then the realisation will overcome you like a wave on a beach.

What he says is like a WWW Wrestler hammering you into the canvas, but the voice his voice is pure cartoon voice. Which means he cannot be taken seriously, well not by me at any rate. Einstein looked stupid but was 50 years ahead of his time, but this cartoon will always be a cartoon for me.

Now look at the wordcount I haven’t even started and 327 words are on the clock, if only I were paid by the word, you get quality too, but I am a word count, or have a counter in the corner so as I pause for a drink I notice how many words there are and I think its write to share it with you. By the way write was right in the last sentence, I thought it might amuse the writers out there as I talk to you. 

Sometimes I make mistakes with sound alike words because I’m going too fast for my fingers to keep up with my brain, as you know we think 4 times faster than we speak, and maybe 8 times faster than we type.

Which brings me to my topic in hand, and by the way Ronnie Corbett and Joyce Grenfell seem to have permeated my writing style or rather talking to you style, they are worth a Google. Where was I, yes, bathroom break.

Now a press release is just that, you are releasing information to the press in the hope that they will give favourable coverage to your product or company. Nobody releases a press release hoping to sabotage their own product. Though we all remember Ratner who really did shoot himself in the head by saying his Jewellery was so cheap because it was crap, so all his customers decided if he thought that why should they buy it.  

A successful press launch involves alcohol, an average person drinks so much, for a press launch multiply that by 5, per person. Journalists like to wet their whistle, they need spit to help them get their pencils ready to write in their notebooks. There was once a journalist who did not drink, he was dispatched to America and ended up in Salt Lake City, married 3 times they say, simultaneously, and had 19 children. He would have ran for President only he was not born in the country.

At press launches there are freebies, goodie bags of alcohol and glossy literature. The glossy literature goes straight in the bin, it’s so heavy to carry after all, you have to make space for the 2 bottles of cheap, 50 quid a bottle champagne. They say many a baby is conceived in a bottle, I am in fact Charles Dickens’ son, or is it Will Shakespeare’s, some pub anyway.

So I think you all have gotten the picture about press releases and press launches, obvious the gentlemen and ladies of the press will say I’m pushing a stereotype. All I will say is that in Tears for A Butcher, which needs a journalist’s copy typist to help me finish it, the climax does involve a pub, the editors scream down the phone, buy the pub, so that the press pack can stay close to the hospital where a life and death situation is happening.

That pub is the Windmill, and this has been a glimpse into the Windmills of my Mind, for the priest from the church next to that pub used to call me Sancho Panza, a fat guy on a donkey. Or am I  really George Clooney?

 p.s. I always have silly photos to make me outstanding in my field, 500 years of farmers after all