3 per cent of PR well written, says New Venture

A New Venture Publishing product story

Edited by the Marketingweek Marketplace editorial team Sep 9, 2008

New Venture Publishing has revealed that only three per cent of PR articles are 'well written', and announced a Writing for Publication Masterclass designed to correct this.

A survey for the Writing for Publication Masterclass, which takes place in London on 8 October 2008, asked 75 editors from a range of newspapers and magazines to rate the average quality of the PR articles they receive on a scale of one (well written) to five (badly written).

72 per cent ranked the articles at between three and five - articles that are not good enough for publication.

In fact, 13 per cent rated the articles at the worst point on the scale.

The survey also found that the 75 editors receive an average of 22 offers of contributed articles a week.

But numbers varied widely with the editor of a Sunday newspaper receiving nearly 300 a week.

Peter Bartram, who runs the half-day Writing for Publication Masterclass, which is aimed at PR and marketing professionals who want to improve their article writing skills, said: 'Common complaints are that articles failed to match the agreed brief, that they contain too much promotional material or that, simply, they are too boring.