An enraged news editor inundated with a “torrent” of pointless Valentine’s Day press releases became so fed up that he posted a list of the most ridiculous emails on his newspaper’s website.
Oliver Frankham, of the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, took the step after realising the spam could be preventing more important messages from reaching his inbox.
Among the multitude of romance-related PR messages received by Oliver are those detailing the story of a lonely porcupine at a Sussex zoo entitled ‘Quill Robbie find love again?’, and top tips on how to help your loved one get a good night’s sleep this 14 February.
However, he cites his favourite as being a release urging lovers to use Valentine’s Day to make legal arrangements for their pets when they break up.
Oliver vented his fury on the Advertiser’s website yesterday afternoon
Said Oliver: “I had been thinking about lifting the lid on the torrent of pointless emails we receive for our readers for some time, just so they can understand what we go through.
“These things really are becoming a menace and can very easily obscure important messages in the inbox, so the rage has been building for a while.
“But the slew of utterly ridiculous e-mails we have had this week has finally tipped me over the edge.”
Oliver is now considering featuring some of the emails in the Advertiser’s print edition, and has touted the possibility of a regular ‘worst email of the week’ feature appearing in the paper.
He added: “It was clearly time to name and shame so I just bashed it out and put it online. I’m awaiting the feedback with interest.”
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“Bash it out and put it online”. That’s the spirit. Easiest way would be to simply not read the guff. Introduce it to Mr Cyberbin.
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“Menace” and “what we go through” is laying it on a bit thick – they’re just junky emails; it only takes a couple of minutes, a couple of times a day to trash them; and it’s a lot quicker than dealing with the same quantity of pointless communications in the post or on the phone!
What amazes me is that any PR believes anybody at all is going to use these non-stories…
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Robbie the porcupine’s love life – or lack of it – is the most intriguing element in this story. Sorry, Oliver, how is poor Robbie getting on ? We should be told.
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I have no idea as he is off-patch. Geographical relevance is missing from almost all of these releases – yet another reason why I would never use them.
To answer an earlier question, I rarely read beyond the first par of these things and I do delete all of them. But they come in their thousands and obscure the few important things in the inbox.
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Organising your email really isn’t that difficult….
And, most of what’s mentioned would make fantastic clickbait if done the right way. A picture of a porcupine with a love heart would stop people in their tracks if done well and put on the front page.
Ever heard of features?
I’m as sad as anyone about the demise of hard news – but a nice, light-hearted story on page 3 has been the staple of all the dailies I’ve worked on.
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We do that when the subject is relevant. But we’re a local paper and none of these have anything to do with our patch. Not even accidentally.
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Somehow, Oliver, I don’t think the commenters here have much experience of newsdesk inboxes. More power to your elbow – pity your spam filter (if you have one) can’t be set to exclude anything with “love”, “valentines” or “hearts” in it for the whole of February. Don’t think they come that subtle!
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Seems to me a lot of journalists have pretty negative opinions of press officers and their releases. Until they jump over the fence and become one that is.
Wonder when the last time the Advertiser carried out any market research to find out how many pars of its stories the readership actually look at. Having read local papers for years in various parts of the country there are a lot of stories where I’ve read the first par and switched off. Usually because the rest is overwritten, irrelevant or lacking in proper local knowledge.
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