Twas the Night Before Christmas Gerard Braud Communications.jpeg

Twas the Night Before Christmas…with Unnecessary Corporate Edits

By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

It is painful to watch. It is painful to listen to. But it is also painful when a trained public relations professional and writer, sends their news release to the leadership team for approval. So I’ve created a shareable holiday greeting designed to make a point.

Has it happened to you?

You submit a news release for approval, then the CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO and every other C-Suite title, goes to work. Red pens in hand, heads down, they begin making unnecessary edits.

  • They add corporate jargon.
  • They pollute the document with legal terminology.
  • They add ten words where one word would do.
  • They debate and fight over commas.
  • They craft run-on sentences.

In short, the approval and editing process can be ugly.

So for all of you who have taken your red pen to someone else’s work…

For all of you who have been victims of the red pen…

I share with you (and I encourage you to share with those around you), a painful, living example, of what can happen when you make unnecessary edits.

Merry Christmas from Braud Communications.

Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”

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