We at Welsh Icons get receive over 1,000 press releases a week so we thought it was time that we laid down some ground-rules for people wanting us to share their exciting stories with us.
1. SUBJECT: Do not worry about putting a title in the subject box when sending us a press release by email. We only get around 2,000 emails a day and love to guess what the email is about. Either leave this field blank or put something eye-catching in like Viagra, Rolex or Lottery.
2. CONTENT: We’ve all been working with computers for so many years now that it does not matter to us what format you send your release to us in. We have nothing better to do than convert a WordPerfect 4.2 document, a Word Star page or any other sort of archaic format just so we can try and see what you are trying to send us.
3. PUNCTUATION: There really is no need to bother punctuating your submissions as our editors have nothing better to do than try and decipher what you are trying to say. Just remember to end every sentence with an exclamation mark and we will do out best to work it out. Remember, that proper writers never use carriage returns to indicate the end of a paragraph.
4. TIME SCALES: Please feel free to sent us something at 11:45pm for publication that day or send us an invitation to cover an event a hundred miles away that starts at 7:00 am just after midnight. It allows us to show how flexible and accommodating we are. It also gives us a chance to show off our private Lear jet.
5. PHOTOGRAPHS: By all means include a photograph with your copy but our professional photographs prefer it when it is taken on a low resolution camera phone in near darkness as it allows them to feel superior about their equipment. Never include a caption with any photographs you submit as we enjoy trying to work out what the hell it is meant to be. Do consider the size of the image you send us – The bigger the better. A 40 megabyte file taken on an iPhone will jam our email system for at least 5 minutes.
6. GRAPHICS: Never send a graphic in a commonly used format such as gif, jpg or png. We much prefer an obscure format, or better still embed everything in a pdf along with any text you wish to send us. This is standard practice in the media these days. Again, please remember never to caption you graphic.
7. RELEVANCE: Welsh Icons is ‘about Wales and all things Welsh’ so please feel free to send us any articles completely unconnected with Wales. We really like the ones that originate in Nigeria. Keep them coming Dearly Beloved Ex-President.
8. COPYRIGHT AND LIBEL: Because we will be the ‘end publisher’ do not worry about the laws covering copyright and libel. Please feel free to send us any old nonsense you have lifted from the net and by all means get on you hobby horse and slag your friends/neighbours/MP/AM or local councilor off to your heart’s content.
