Random Mutterings

I will begin this episode of K’s psychotic, or otherwise, rants by cribbing about my favourite topic, Press Releases. It doesn’t take much to add a link to a download location, but some folks think that a friendly five-meg attachment of a paunchy fat-ass will get printed. Never mind the picture belongs in a gallery of ‘How not to take a picture!’, one picture I got recently didn’t even have the red-eye corrected. A crap mobile phone camera can do that much onboard, let alone on a computer. I had to spend half of Monday clearing out emails, sure I’m to blame for some of them, but I have never covered kitchen and kitchen accessories in my life. So why send me an email? I’m just too nice to start dramatically blackballing domains, but yaar, akal lagaya karo.
The other thing that is a bit irritating are detailed pitches which are so crappy it isn’t funny. But what gets my goat is the latest habit in some agencies to highlight that the person they’re talking about is a ‘single mom’. How does that make a difference? I sure don’t remember my mother advertising the fact. Sure, it might be plausible in a women’s magazine but where I work? Christ, at least change the pitch between journalists. What someone is makes no difference to me straight up, it can make for great anecdotal pieces – or the lead feature in Mint Lounge – give me the basics first.
That said, I wonder how well we give the basics too. Like this entire ‘DLC’ brouhaha with Bharti and MTN, I was out of the news loop for over a week and while I did manage to go back and reference stories to figure out what on earth was being written about, I should not need to. Sigh! I’ve just had a long day under the sun running from meeting to meeting, so grant me the rant.
Oh yeah, and the latest one I got says ‘We have a Twitter account please follow us’! Until your company makes references to ‘Holy Cows and Calves’ I refuse to follow you, but that’s just me. An irritable journalist who is about to turn a year older and is dreading the influx of people to go see ‘Ma’. Nothing against Durga Puja, believe me I love it, but I refuse to stand in queue with the great un-deodorised masses. I’m not being a snob, I go see the Puja’s in the morning, in the evenings, if you live in Delhi stay, far, far away from CR Park and GK-2. If you value your nose, wallet and general well-being.
Oh yeah, and if you thought that Minister de l'twit was bad, his Boss is crazier! Let's all deal with the Taliban, so the next time the Congress says IC-814...