If you want to make your writing clearer and more interesting, use be verbs sparingly.

The verb to be includes:

Be, being, been, am, is, are, was were.

Be verbs make text dull partly because of overuse, but also because they remove the reader one step from the action. They take readers the long route to meaning and can be long-winded.

Compare:

• Fred is dismissive of cowboy films

with

• Fred dismisses cowboy films.

The second phrase has more energy, it propels the reader along. It expresses the same idea in a clearer, more concise way.

Be verbs turn up in passive language, staying away from them helps keep your writing in the active voice.

Old-school newspapers taught journalists to never use be verbs in headlines, but prefer strong action verbs instead.

My New Zealand media on Twitter list is still available on this site. It has been updated many times with two new entries yesterday and four updates. If you think you should be on the list, or if you are on the list and think your entry needs to change, please get in touch.

In addition to the HTML list I've also created a Twitter list:@billbennettnz/new-zealand-media-people.

Everyone who is on the HTML list is now on the Twitter list.

Update: The list name has changed to NZ media on Twitter

New Zealand journalists and media organisations on Twitter:

Newspapers, radio and TV stations:

@3NewsNZ	TV 3 News
@AfternoonsRNZ	Radio NZ afternoons
@BusinessTalk	Business Talk
@ComputerworldNZ	Computerworld New Zealand
@dompost	The Dominion-Post
@DunedinNews	Dunedin News
@gisbornenews	Gisborne News
@Karere	Maori News
@LoveThisPaper	Kim Gillespie, editor Wanganui Chronicle
@MediawatchNZ	Radio NZ's Mediawatch show
@natmusic	Radio NZ's music 101 show
@NewstalkZB	Newstalk ZB Radio
@ninetonoon	Radio NZ - Nine To Noon
@NZDoctor_news	NZ Doctor daily news feed
@nzherald	The New Zealand Herald
@NzMorningReport	Radio NZ Morning Report
@NZPAnews	NZPA News
@nzresellernews	Reseller News
@NZstuff	stuff.co.nz
@PressNewsroom	The Christchurch Press
@rnz_news	Radio New Zealand News
@RNZ_Sunday_am	Radio NZ Sunday Morning
@TheNBR	The National Business Review
@TVNZNews	TVNZ News
@upthisway	This way up Radio NZ consumer show
@WaikatoTimes	Waikato Times (appears to be dormant)
@whatsoningizzy	What's on in Gisborne

Magazines

@coupdemain	coup de main digital magazine
@discounderworld	Monthly digital magazine
@goodmag	Good magazine
@idealogmag	Idealog magazine
@ITBrief	IT Brief, trade title for computer professionals
@NetGuide	New Zealand NetGuide
@real_groove	Real Groove
@ripitupNZ	Rip It Up
@salientmagazine	Student magazine from Victoria University of Wellington
@TheGrooveGuide	The Groove Guide
@UnlimitedMagNZ	Unlimited

@AdrienneRewi	Adrienne Rewi, freelance journalist, travel guide writer
@AliIkram	Ali Ikram, TV3 journalist
@AnaSamways	Ana Samways, New Zealand Herald Sideswipe columnist
@andemac	Ande Macpherson, Group Interactive Director Mediaworks Radio, commentator & blogger
@asiapublishing	Doug Green, Asia Publishing Group nzmanufacturer.co.nz
@bloggerbb	entertainment editor for the NZ Herald online
@billbennettnz	Bill Bennett, tech journalist, freelance, Auckland
@blairensor	Blair Ensor, eporter, Marlborough Express, specialising in rural
@bjdooley	Brian J. Dooley, tech journalist and independent analyst
@CallMeDrAl	Subeditor, Unlimited magazine
@CateOwen	Cate Owen, digital person for TV3 Sunrise
@Chrisbellnz	Chris Bell, freelance
@ChrisKeall	Chris Keall, freelance, NBR technology writer
@Cliptec	Phillip Smith, Cliptec media monitoring
@ColinJacksonNZ	tech commentator
@craig_martin	Managing Director, Indie Travel Media Ltd
@dubdotdash	Peter McLennan, designer, dj, blogger, muso, renaissance man
@ethicalmartini	Martin Hirst, associate professor AUT
@GreerMcDonald	Greer McDonald, Dominion-Post
@HamishBarwick	Hamish Barwick, Fairfax Business Group
@HamishCR	Rebel producer, director, presenter, Throng TV
@hoskingonzb	Mike Hosking, Newstalk ZB
@jamesc0leman	James Coleman, radio and TV presenter
@JohnJCampbell	TV current affairs host and Bro’town star
@jonohutchison	TV3 News and Sunrise reporter
@juhasaarinen	Juha Saarinen, freelance
@julietspeedy	TV3 journalist
@KATEHAWKESBY	Freelance
@lindajmartin	Managing Editor, Indie Travel Media Ltd
@littlehigh	Paul Reynolds, radio commentator
@lukeappleby	Luke Appleby, tech blogger for stuff.co.nz
@macnzMark	Mark Webster, freelance IT writer, Mac specialist, NetGuide, Macthemag, Mac Planet
@markrevington	Mark Revington, Unlimited editor
@miroslab	Miro Slabbert, PC World art director
@mitchellhall	Mitchell Hall, NBR reporter
@monty64	Denise Montgomery, TV News Producer, Producer ONE News @ 4:30
@MrsDesperate	Bronwyn Marquardt, journalist, travel writer, author, blogger
@NatashaUtting	Natasha Utting, Campbell Live
@nztaylor	Martin Taylor, director, digital publishing forum
@petergnz	Peter Griffin, Science Media Centre
@poundito	Simon Pound, reporter, producer, writer
@radiowammo	Glenn Williams, radio host Kiwi FM
@rgoodchild	Rachel Goodchild
@robonz	Rob O’Neill, Computerworld New Zealand editor
@RodCheeseman	TV3
@RoryMacKinnon	Scoop's political reporter and occasional blogger at MediaDarlings.net
@SamHayes3news	Samantha Hayes 3 News presenter
@scottbartley	Scott Bartley, reviews editor at PC World
@simonhendery	Simon Hendry, New Zealand Herald tech writer
@SineadBoucher	Sinead Boucher, digital editor for Fairfax New Zealand
@SitaMitaBita	Sita Narsi, designer extraordinaire at Fairfax Business Group
@someonegetsteve	Steve Leon, new media producer, In-business mag and others
@staceyvivienne	Stacey Wood, Dominion Post Capital Day reporter
@starrjulie	Julie Starr, Editor-in-Residence at Wintec’s School of Media Arts in Hamilton, runs the Evolving Newsroom
@stevebwriter	Stephen Bell, Computerworld Wellington reporter
@TedGibbons	Ted Gibbons, editor PC World New Zealand
@vmcm1	Virginia McMillan, freelance, health business
@WazL	CEO at APN online

Public relations and communications

@adagebusiness	marketing and media consultant to small business and not-for-profit groups
@AngelaMoriarty	communications manager for Positively Wellington Tourism
@Belindanash	AUT communications manager
@billyralston	Bill Ralston, communications, crisis management, columnist
@BulletPR	Bullet Public Relations
@campbellh	Campbell Hodgetts
@caanz	Catherine Arrow, public relations consultant
@ClaireDel	Claire Del
@craigadolph	Media Planner/Buyer at GSL Network
@ericalloyd	Erica Lloyd, Network PR
@HarcourtsToni	Harcourts NZ communications manager, Toni Skiffington
@iChild	Monica Wales, Media planner and buyer, ad industry blogger
@Ideasshop	PR company
@jacksonjwood	Jackson Wood - Green Party Media team
@jduvalsmith	Jennifer Duval Smith, Bullet PR
@jossdeb	Joss Debreceny, senior comms advisor at Ministry of Education
@julielandry	Julie Landry
@KevinPtak	Kevin Ptak, Porter Novelli Public Relations
@LouisaJones	Louisa Jones, Eleven\PR
@louisvanwyk	Louis van Wyk, Tuanz
@markomPR	Markom Public Relations
@networkpr	Network Public Relations
@nickoflaherty	Nicholas O’Flaherty, Bullet PR
@paulbrislen	Paul Brislen, communications at Vodafone NZ
@Paul_Matthews	Paul Matthews, Bullet Public Relations
@paulpursuit	Paul O’Leary, Pursuit PR
@samfarrow	Sam Farrow
@SarahPSparks	Sarah Sparks, director of markomPR
@SenatorBlackham	Mark Blackham, Senate Communications
@shineprjack	Jacky James, Shine PR
@simcmanus	Simon Mcmanus, McManus Tourism Communications
@sknightly	Stephen Knightly, Pursuit PR
@spicepr	Spice communications group, full service PR and marcomm consultancy
@The_Saurus	Rachael Joel
@wagthedogagency	Full service digital agency
@watchthewitter	Jenny Wilmshurst, marketing planning & communications

Bloggers and online media

@althecat	Alastair Thompson, Scoop Media
@audaciousgloop	Simon Young, writer
@benkepes	Ben Kepes
@bernardchickey	Bernard Hickey, business journalist, runs Interest.co.nz
@deadball	Sports blog run by music industry types
@dpfdpf	David Farrar, Kiwiblog
@freitasm	Mauricio Freitas, Geekzone
@justinflitter	Social CRM, helpdesk and customer service related blogger
@KiwiblogDPF	Kiwiblog
@Kunal_Kripalani	Kunal Kripalani, social media guidelines blogger for policy & strategy
@mrsgooding	Christine Gooding, shannonsway
@nzben	Ben Gracewood, TV gadget reviewer
@philbilbrough	Phil Bilbrough, Scoop
@publicaddress	Russell Brown, blogger, journalist and TV presenter
@roadcycling	RoadCycling.co.nz NZ’s Online Cycling Magazine
@rww	Richard MacManus, Read Write Web
@Scoopnz	Scoop

This list is not comprehensive, if you’d like to be included, or you know someone who should be added, please leave the twitter name, link and a few descriptive words in the comments below and I’ll make the additions when I have time.

Also, please let me know if any corrections are needed.

There's a similar list of Australian media people at The Earley Edition: 501 Australian Journalists and News Media People on Twitter

You may be interested in:

Can Twitter be journalism?
More on Twitter as journalism

Kowledge workers who combine technical expertise with professional communications or writing skills are in demand.

Employers need writers to produce words for company web sites. The jobs fall into two distinct categories: working for online information providers and working for the web operations of more traditional firms.

Both are hungry for fresh talent.

It is not enough just knowing how to create good-looking web pages. To get this work you'll be expected to write compelling content that keeps customers coming back.

These jobs are not necessarily suitable for journalists and others moving over from old media.

Keeping copy flowing through a site and making sure all the clicks work is more important than worrying whether a site is well-written or not. If you're a hard-bitten news hound you might be expected to swallow your instinct for high levels of accuracy and checking.

And then there's search engine optimization — writing copy that ensures your company features at the top of Google searches.

As The New York Times points out this can mean waving goodbye to elegant, well-crafted prose and witty eye-catching headlines.

These two aspects of online writing probably explain why poor grammar and readability standards feature on many web sites. Inside the online business it i an open secret ex-newspaper journalists are good at delivering readable material that scores well with search engines.

If you're interested, you'll find online communications jobs advertised under I for Internet or M for marketing and not J for journalism.

It’s a great opportunity for out-of-work journalists—and there are a lot of them these days—as the supply of jobs is greater than the supply of talent.

Many journalists think they can’t do this kind of work because online production tools are difficult to use and it involves scary things like databases and programming. In fact, most content production is not at the hard-core code-cutting level. That's usually all done by more geeky, backroom types. And today's content management systems are no harder than editorial systems. I'd argue they are simpler.

Junior content producers and editors earn salaries in line with people of the same age working in other industries. In other words, you won't get much of a pay rise if you sign up. However, while the basic salaries are not exciting — the opportunities are fantastic. Some employers offer options, equity or profit share schemes — which puts an entirely different perspective on the offered salaries.

Many online editorial-oriented jobs are in companies with only a few employees. They offer a chance to get in on the ground floor. There’s always a good chance that options will be worthless, equity minimal and any profit share doesn't amount to much. In a small organisation you'll have plenty of scope to make sure there are profits.

Even if the promises of on-top-of-base-salary income never materialise, you’ll get to learn how a small company at the sharp end operates. And you’ll see the mistakes. You can take that experience to another start-up or use it to form your own business.

Disclosure: I should come clean here and admit I do a lot of web writing and editing in my communications business. If you're in business and looking for an experienced publishing professional to handle an online editorial project contact me.

Read: This Boring Headline Is Written for Google

Any fool can write a good press release that hits its target audience and creates an impact.

Writing one that fails requires more work. There are people who have mastered the art. As an editor I've seen some great efforts over the years. I'd like to share them with you.

Here are my top ten tips for making sure press releases get minimum attention:

1. Cripple its chances of reaching editors and journalists

Everyone can read plain text messages in the body of an email. The message will almost certainly get through to any kind of desktop email clients, all flavours of web mail, as well as Blackberries, iPhones and Palm Pilots.

To reach less than 100 percent of your potential audience, try putting some of these clever barriers in the way.

Attachments are an effective way of cutting down the reach of your press release. People reading email on mobile devices have trouble reading them. Spam filters can treat them with suspicion and if you're lucky the recipient may use Lotus Notes as a client and have difficulty decoding the attachment.

Another advantage of attachments is that you can trim your audience further by using difficult-to-open file formats: such as the new .docx file format used by Word 2007 – many journalists will struggle to read them.

Attachments are great for bulking up the size of your release so it won't squeeze through email gateways. If you're  clever you can put high-resolution logos in, say, your Word attachments.  These add  nothing to the press release but can swiftly push the file size over the email gateway threshold.

A further reason for a sending press release as an attachment is its invisibility to email search. So, when a journalist decides to look for your press release among the hundreds and thousands in their email in-box, it will be extremely difficult to find.

2. Minimize relevance

One of the best ways to make sure your press release fails is to make sure it has no relevance to any sane audience. For example, if you are a technology company and you buy a new fleet of cars you can squander your PR budget and make sure any future release goes directly to an editor's recycle bin by sending the story to the technology press.

3. Send it out whenever

Timeliness is everything. So by sending out releases when you feel like it, you can boost your chances of failure. Better still, for print publications try waiting until five minutes after the final deadline. For online publications wait until the story has already broken elsewhere.

4. Organize schedules so contacts are unavailable for interview

Good journalists are such annoying creatures. Rather than printing your press release verbatim and passing the contact details over to their advertising departments, they may want to speak to the people mentioned in your releases. A tried and tested technique for avoiding these complications is to send the people overseas shortly after dispatching the release. International communications are good these days, so just packing them off to a partner conference in Atlanta isn't good enough, you need to make sure they are on an 18 hour trans-pacific flight or, better still, holidaying on a remote island.

5. Use poor writing skills

Obvious when you think about it. If your writing is poor and confused so that editors and journalists can't understand your message you'll kill two birds with one stone.

First, you'll make sure the first message gets spiked in the too hard basket.

But second, as a bonus, you can establish your reputation as an illiterate idiot that isn't worth bothering with under any circumstances. That way, your future releases will go straight to the junk pile without even being read.

6. Try bullying

Sadly this powerful technique is underused. By threatening to talk to a journalist's editor, or an editor's boss about their poor response to your press release you can permanently undermine your relationship with scores of people (remember journalists talk to each other so this is an efficient way of burning lots of bridges).

Another approach is to tell the journalist the company in question is advertising thus triggering their professional editorial independence.

7. Don't bother with photographs

Journalists and editors like photographs. They love good photographs. By making sure they are no photographs of any description you'll increase the chances that your press release is regarded as totally useless. If you think that's taking things too far, try sending out crappy, unusable photos. Photos with dozens of un-named people work well in this respect. Getting people to hold champagne glasses, stand in front of company logos, gather around a totally unreadable normal-size bank cheque or impersonate public enemy number one mug shots are all effective techniques for creating instantly ignorable press release photographs.

8. Send it to everyone regardless

This is a great way to upset journalists and degrade both your personal and company reputation. At the same time if you work for a PR agency you can bill the client heaps for having a, er, comprehensive, mailing list and then bill them for time as you and your staff spend all day on the phone dealing with angry editors.

9. Keep things as dull as possible

Journalists prefer interesting stories. Public relations professionals recognise this and use clever tricks like passive sentences, boring ideas, irrelevant background facts, tired clichéd adjectives and implausible anodyne quotes to turn them off and help speed their press releases on their way to the great recycle bin in the sky.

In house and government public relations people are usually better at delivering boring releases than agency staff – if you're worried your writing sparkles too much, they have much to teach you.

10. Make sure the subject line obscures the message

Even experienced public relations operatives can slip up by giving an email release an interesting subject line. The danger is that after putting in all the hard work required to guarantee nobody takes the slightest notice of their press release they use active language to put a relevant timely subject line message that tempts editors and journalists to open the document and read more.

The good news is there are fail-safe subject lines that are certain to turn off editors and journalists so they can just skip past your release. A classic subject line like press release will probably work, if that's too simple try important press release or important press release from Company Name.

A neat by-product of badly written subject lines is they can fool spam detection engines into rejecting a message altogether; phrases like important announcement from Company Name or message for Clark Kent can come in handy here.

If you have a product or service to sell, it’s important as many potential customers as possible get to hear about it. Word-of-mouth marketing is a great jumping off point when you’re starting out, but eventually you’ll need to reach a wider audience. This usually means engaging with newspapers, magazines, the Internet through web sites and blogs or broadcast media.

There are two ways businesses use media to get attention; advertising and publicity. Newcomers can confuse the two. That’s a mistake as they are radically different and operate in parallel universes.

Advertising is always strictly commercial. Generally you buy a fixed amount of space in a printed publication or air time from a radio or TV broadcaster. Online is more complicated, but it mainly comes down to display advertising like banners and boom boxes or text ads.

These can appear on web sites, in electronic newsletters or even as part of an application like Gmail. When you buy advertising you provide the advertising content, or what people in the business call copy, at your cost.

If you've got enough budget you can hire a creative team to prepare the copy on your behalf. This costs money, but it is worth it if you’re running a major campaign: clued-up advertising specialists know how to press the right buttons and get results.

With advertising you get to say where, when and how often the copy will run. More importantly you have complete control over the message and the delivery. (Well up to a point; some publishers will refuse certain ads and there are laws about what you can and can't say in an advertisement).

Advertising prices are loosely based on the number of readers, listeners or viewers the media delivers. Experienced buyers of advertising think about CPM or the cost of reaching one thousand people.

In contrast with advertising, you have almost no control over publicity; editors, journalists, photographers and other media professionals make all the important decisions. They may choose to listen to you or read your material, but they might equally ignore your advice.

In principle it all depends on the newsworthiness of your message. If your story strikes a chord, they’ll take notice. If it’s boring, they’ll ignore it.

Surprising though it may seem, journalists have a strict ethical code. They are not for sale. Their job is to keep their readers informed about important events in their own area regardless of any external commercial considerations.

This is why you should avoid applying any kind of commercial pressure when seeking publicity. For example, don’t imply that you will place advertising with their media property in return for favourable treatment.

At best you will insult them or offend their professional pride. At worst you will create a situation where ethical considerations mean they either can’t touch your story or they choose to take a more hostile approach just to sheet home their independence.

If they take notice of your publicity, the best media operators will attempt to get behind the message you want to send. Their over-riding loyalty is to their readers. Journalists don’t regard aiding your sales as any part of their job. Nor should they.

This might seem confusing to some people, after media companies are usually commercial business. You might think editors and journalist would jump at the chance of making money. However, taking a longer term view makes good business sense. A media property with a strong ethical code will be held in high regard by its readers, listeners or viewers.

This not only means that more people get to consume the property’s editorial; it also means they get to see the advertising material. Significantly, a product with strong editorial will usually deliver the better, i.e. more involved or wealthier, kind of customer. At the same time, research shows advertising works best when the editorial is credible.

Even when a journalist does respond to your publicity in a largely favourable way, they still get to choose what is said, where it is said and when the story runs. They choose the angle. They also get to decide how many words to devote to your message and they can choose whether your rivals get to comment or not. An editor might choose to use your supplied photographs or other graphic material, they may not. A journalist – usually a sub-editor, will write the headline and captions.

You wouldn’t normally expect to pay money to a publisher when they use your publicity. However, there are some media properties that will ask for a payment in return for running it.

Alternatively some properties might agree to run your vetted publicity material in return for you buying advertising. In fact there’s a whole spectrum of arrangements from total separation of editorial and advertising all the way to properties that are, in effect, nothing but paid advertising.

At the extreme end of the scale you are dealing with vanity publishers – people who will take your money and make you look good. Your mother may like the result, but you won’t sell much this way.

As a general rule of thumb, publications that sell their editorial integrity are not well-regarded by their readers – that’s your prospective customers. Experienced publicity people  discount the value of these publications.

Apart from anything else, readers tend to know when they are looking at paid-for editorial and learn to trust it less than truly independent content. In particular, younger, media literate, people are especially cynical about this kind of material.

One commonly used measure is that four of their readers would be worth one reader of a more prestigious, editorially independent title. That also applies to advertising in these publications – you can expect to pay considerably less for your space in a publication that isn't fully independent.

While many businesses organise their own publicity, others hire specialists to do it for them. The most common arrangement involves hiring a public relations or PR consultant. Amongst other things it’s their job to know which media properties and media professionals are receptive to which message.

A good PR company can save you a huge amount of time and trouble. They’ll help you prepare your message and train you in the art of handling the inevitable follow-up questions. They’ll make sure the message gets to the right people at the right time.

Some public relations companies have a considerable amount of intellectual property tied up with publication and journalist databases. Other operators keep all this information in their heads, Palm Pilots or Filofaxes. They cultivate contacts and learn the best way to approach each potential outlet.

Be warned that public relations companies rarely guarantee results. In fact, you should go out of your way to avoid any PR operator who makes that kind of promise.

One misconception is that publicity is all about issuing press releases or holding press conferences. Both have an important role to play, but they are only the tip of the iceberg; most important PR takes place out of sight. We’ll look more at this later.