I've been trying hard to avoid posts about dumb PR companies but I give up. It seems hard to imagine an age when journalists just did their job - researching stories and writing them. (And being paid enough of a decent wage to be able to commit decent time to proper research.) Now we are buried daily under a torrent of non-news from sub-contracted sales people calling themselves media professionals whose only aim is to shout louder than the next PR person and get their product mentioned. It probably worked at first... journalists are partly to blame... we tend to have short attention spans and if someone gives us a good story we're only to happy to run it. These days though every second company employs some Fiona or Patricia to pump press releases out into the inboxes of all and sundry. Nothing to say? No problem! We'll just make something up! The latest is from the PR for the Cotswold Outdoor Company. It's titled 'Product of the Week'. Yes, every week they're going to send me information about a product for no reason other than that they've designated it product of the week. This week it's (wait for it) Garden Clocks! For heaven's sake! Who the hell is going to write about bleeding garden clocks? WHY?