It’s funny how the comms industry loves to think of itself as rapidly evolving, yet releases and spokespeople still use the same soulless weasel words and jargon that they have for decades. It needs to change.

An editor once told me you’re not a real journalist until you get your first lawsuit. That was over 30 years ago and although he was (probably) joking, I perversely liked the sentiment.

Have you got the word “passionate” in your LinkedIn profile? The odds are you do – almost everyone does.

If you work in marketing, you may have heard the saying: don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle (though some people, especially in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, say sausage instead of steak.

We’ve all been there. Your flight gets delayed, your banking app won’t work, your internet connection drops – and you have no idea what’s going on.

There are two reasons why using AI to write anything is a bad idea: writing needs to be new and unique – for your audience, your brand and SEO communication is a human activity.

If you want to make your writing more interesting (and if you don't, you're on the wrong website), you need to make it evocative – and a great way to do this is to show, don't tell.

In my defence, it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I left my full-time editing job at The Sydney Morning Herald a decade ago, it occurred to me that I could write a book about how to pitch stories to the media.