At the End of the Day, we need change

 "You’d think these talking heads could think outside of the box to write copy better than anyone on the planet and at the end of the day, what's not to like?"

            Come on journalists, give me a break.  Since I’ve retired, I’ve been watching TV a lot, or at least listening to it while I do other things.  This seems to be the year of the clichés, if you know what I mean.

Journalists are supposed to be creative, original, just-the-facts-ma’am-kind of people.  But if you listen you will hear newscasts riddled with clichés. Print journalists don’t seem to be as bad.

 According to Simon and Schuster’s 6^th edition of Handbook for Writers, “clichés are worn-out expressions that have lost their capacity to communicate effectively because of overuse.”

 You’d think these talking heads could think outside of the box to write copy better than anyone on the planet and at the end of the day, what's not to like?

During the Casey Anthony trial, if they had said, “at the end of the day,” one more time I would have snatched the cable out of my wall.

 Here are some other offending phrases documented by www.newswriting.com groaners.htm:  (I love the title of this blog, groaners!  Ha.)

            Learning curve: 771 articles

            Way beyond: 746 articles

            A no-brainer: 651 articles

            Game changer: 524 articles

            Perfect storm: 520 articles

            Raising awareness: 405 articles

            Elephant in the room: 353 articles

            Not fit for purpose: 327 articles

            Out of the box: 229 articles

            What’s not to like?: 206 articles

           (http://blogs.journalism.co.uk)

Who knew that journalists would stoop to such depths as communicators.   Come on P.R., journalism, broadcast majors and advisers; editors and publishers, let’s get a quick fix on this problem?

Signed,

Me

Former broadcaster, journalist, P.R. practitioner, and recipient of many marks of the red pen.