Crafting Proper Photo Captions for Publication

By Sarah Larson

Visuals such as photos (and videos) are an important part of your communications plan, but the work doesn’t end once the image is made. If you are submitting that photo for publication, you have a little bit more to do.

Photos submitted to media outlets should be accompanied by clear information about who is pictured, what they are doing, and where and when the action took place. Here are the guidelines the Associated Press (and, therefore, most news outlets) follows for photo captions.

The first sentence of a caption should:

• Describe who is in the photograph and what is happening in the photo in the present tense.
• In general, names should be listed in order, left to right, unless it is impossible for the caption to read normally otherwise. With multiple people identified with the caption, enough representations to placement are necessary so there is no confusion as to each subject’s identity.

For photos created by Associated Press photographers, captions also must:

• Name the city and state where the image was made.
• Provide the date the photo was made, including the day of the week if the photo was made within the past two weeks.

An optional second sentence of a caption can be used to give context to the event or describe why the photo is significant. Many publications do not include a second sentence, as it takes up additional space and often is subjective, rather than being strictly factual.

The structure of a basic photo caption, therefore, can be expressed as: (Noun) (verb in present tense) (direct object) during (event name) at (proper noun / location) in (city) on (day of the week), (month) (date), (year).

Photo Credit: Jung Wi, Allure West Studios

For example, an appropriate caption for the photo at right would be:

Gray Wirth, President and CEO of Impact Thrift Stores, addresses the audience during the 1st Annual Regional Impact Breakfast at Talamore Country Club near Ambler, Pa., on Wednesday, June 15, 2016.

Note that we always recommend triple checking the factual information, including the spelling of people’s names and organizations and titles.

Having your own professional photographs to submit to publications along with your press releases, story pitches, announcements, calendar listings, articles and blog posts is more important than ever as communication continues its shift from text to visuals.

Including the correct information along with those visuals will give your submitted photos an advantage over the competition and increase your odds of having your photos chosen for publication.

5 Simple Tips for Checking the Accuracy of Your Content

By Sarah Larson

If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

So goes an old journalism adage that has guided generations of young reporters, editors and producers along the career path to becoming seasoned, trusted sources of accurate information.

It's a good rule to live by for everyone, not just journalists. Verifying that the information your organization is putting out is accurate should be a top priority for all, whether your organization is a nonprofit, a professional services provider, a consumer-focused business, a major corporation, or a small local business. Too often, however, information is published that clearly never went through a final fact-checking or copy-editing step.

It is particularly important for those working in the communications business to ensure that those two steps are hard-wired into everyday work processes. Mistakes do happen - but they happen a lot less frequently when accuracy and verification are respected parts of the process.

And that doesn't mean just for "big" projects, or for information from certain sources. Go back to that saying again: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." It means that information should be verified regardless of how obvious it seems or how esteemed the source might be.

Here are some tips and tools that should help.

• Get the names right. This is one of the most basic tenets of journalism, and back in the day when I walked uphill to school, both ways, barefoot in the snow, misspelling someone's name was a transgression that could get a young reporter fired. Don't let your organization publish a flyer for an event honoring your largest donor with the donor's name misspelled. Check business cards, v-cards, website biographies and more to verify names. The one time you don't check the spelling of John Smith is the one time it actually will be Jon Smythe.
• Don't assume the client is right. If a client emails you information about an event for use in a press release, don't take for granted that the names, dates or spellings in the email are correct. Look elsewhere to verify that information first. Websites, business cards, directories, event calendars and news coverage are good sources to check, but if there are discrepancies, sometimes a phone call to the source is needed to clear things up.
• Don't rely on spell check. Even when it works properly (and it often doesn't), a spelling check program can't catch instances where a word is spelled correctly but is simply the wrong word. 
• Use the dictionary. Yes, a dictionary. And don't just google or go to dictionary.com. Anyone who calls herself a professional communicator should have an actual hard copy of a dictionary within arm's reach of her desk. Everyone in the organization should use that same one, too, so decide whether you will use the Merriam-Webster or Oxford American or Oxford English, and then stick with it.
• Follow established grammar and usage rules. Whether you are drafting pitches to send to the media or a press release to publish on a newswire, your news will be taken more seriously by professional journalists if it follows expected style guidelines. For most U.S. publications, that means following the Associated Press Stylebook. Violations of AP Style stand out like neon lights to veteran journalists, so mastering the quirks, such as when to abbreviate a month and when to spell it out, will help you establish and maintain a professional reputation. 

If you are a professional communicator, it is your job to help the organization you are supporting look its best. That means taking the time to verify information that clients might not have spared the time to check, themselves. It also means doing everything possible to ensure that that event flyer promoting a forum about "public education" didn't leave out the "l."

What tools or processes does your organization use to ensure the information it is publishing is accurate?

Proofreading Your Content: The Area to be Nit-Picky

Posted by Rose Strong

Have you ever read an article or book and found that one glaringly wrong typo and wonder how no one caught the glaring error? We’ve all read signs in store windows and thought the person who wrote it should go back to high school English class and review sentence structure. Many of these typos have made it into emails or on Facebook for some good belly laughs.

- Gun Shop
- Prince Harry

Fresh eyes are so important in writing professionally. Regardless of what your business is or who you’re writing for, if it isn’t well-written on your website, blog post or printed materials or even your Twitter feed and Facebook status, you could be losing potential business.

Mangle a sentence or misspell a few words, forget a comma or two and you immediately send the message that your business does haphazard work.

This past May, I started with Furia Rubel in the capacity of office administrator. With an office staff of five, this position is more than just keeping an appointment calendar, answering the phone and filing. It offers a variety of tasks, one of which is proofreading.

For the past nine years, I’ve been writing professionally as a part-time freelancer, mostly for a local weekly newspaper here in Bucks County. Let me say one thing, there is a world of difference between being the writer and being the proofreader.

As a writer, I do my research, put words on the screen, review a few times and send them off to an editor. Regarding proofreading, you’d think that it’s basically about checking for misspellings and making sure sentences make sense. Oh no! That’s only part of the job.

For the last five months, I’ve had a crash course in proofreading and I’m still learning. And the job of course, is about making sure things are spelled right, but don’t forget about extra spaces, over-used quotation marks and the Oxford comma.

And then of course there’s style. In Furia Rubel’s case, that’s the AP Stylebook for most things, but there are those odd questions we ask one another, “Is it health care or healthcare?” “Does nonprofit have a hyphen?” “Is board of directors capitalized?” “Should that have a comma or semi-colon?” “Shouldn’t that word be pluralized?” “Is third-world-country a politically correct term?” And the list goes on, every day. The AP Stylebook is our go-to source for these kinds of questions.

It sounds nit-picky, (yes, there is a hyphen in that) but it all comes down to doing great work, making sense and sharing a cohesive and well-thought-out message with our audience.

- Cost of Not Proofreading
- Grammar Girl

Associated Press Stylebook Updates for 2012

Posted by Amanda Walsh

For many public relations professionals, the AP Stylebook is our writing Bible. It answers questions about hyphens, word usage, spelling and grammar. For this very reason it is so important to stay on top of changes made to the 2012 Stylebook. The recently released, 500-page, news writing guide has 270 new entries this year.

This article on Ragan.com highlights the most note-worthy changes for PR professionals.

- Hopefully: Despite critics’ opposition to the addition, the AP now allows the use of the word meaning “it is hoped.”

- Fashion lingo: Take note all you Fashion PR folks. Tiffany & Co., Velcro and A-line have been added into the AP Stylebook among other commonly-used words.

- Broadcast language: Words and phrases such as b-roll, cut, fade, live shot, voice-over and VO are now accepted.

- Social Media guidelines: With the debut of social media terms in 2010, AP continues to add terms to its Stylebook. This year modified tweet, direct message and cloud were added.

- Miscellaneous entries: Entries include fracking, Huffington Post, Godspeed, underwater and year-round, among others.

These additions along with 185 other entries are the updates for 2012. A helpful resource that we subscribe to at Furia Rubel is the AP Stylebook Online since it’s always up-to-date with the latest changes. Happy writing!

Photo courtesy of Poynter

Breaking: PA Supreme Court To Tweet Rulings

I just heard that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is going to tweet its rulings. Check out the details provided by the Associated Press for The Legal Intelligencer. The handle to follow is http://twitter.com/#!/SupremeCtofPA

I find this very interesting considering I just presented at the Philadelphia Bar Association Bench Bar Conference on Social Media and Litigation. One of the recommendations I made is that every law firm and judiciary should adopt a social media policy. I was told that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is looking into just that -- and I was happy to hear it.

In August, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced that they will allow the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) to cover oral arguments. In a press release, Chief Justice Castille said, "My colleagues and I are pleased to open our courtroom to PCN’s statewide audience so they can see how our court operates and follow arguments in cases affecting every citizen of Pennsylvania."

How the times have changed.

Yahoo Releases Style Guide for Web Content

Posted by Katie Noonan

Yahoo! has released a style guide much like the AP Stylebook that offers help for those who write Web content. “The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World” includes useful articles on writing Web content, creating effective headlines, grammar, punctuation and style rules for Web-specific language, and an "Ask an Editor" feature for questions not addressed through the online guide.

What I like about Yahoo!'s style guide is that it takes into account search engine optimization in addition to editors' preference. Mashable brings up an excellent example- according to the AP Stylebook, "e-mail" should still be hyphenated, but in common usage it is often used without the hyphen. Since those who write for the Web have to take into consideration what people are most likely to conduct a search for, a seemingly small distinction like "e-mail" or "email" matters.

The Yahoo! Style Guide is currently available online and will be released in print and for iPad and Kindle on July 6.

Ragan's Public Service Announcement on "G.O.D. Disorder"

Posted by Katie Noonan

Here is a great video from Ragan on what they call "Grammar Obsessive Disorder." Definitely worth checking out if you want a laugh.

It is worth mentioning though, that good grammar is essential in PR. A press release replete with grammatical errors will get tossed by members of the media and thus, your story will never be told. Poor grammar makes you appear unprofessional, uneducated or simply lazy. As a rule of thumb, PR practitioners should always consult the AP Stylebook whenever they issue a press release to the media.

Grammar gets a little tricky though in the Internet age, especially as the media makes the move to the Internet. For example, according to the AP Stylebook the proper term is "Web site," yet "web site" is more commonly used in search engine search terms. That means that it's important to tailor your message differently depending on your targeted audience. When posting a press release to issue on your Web site, it's more important to use terms that "Googlers" would be likely to search rather than those mandated by the AP Stylebook. However, when submitting news to an online news site, still use AP Stylebook guidelines.

Comcast to Buy Plaxo Social Network

This just in from the Philadelphia Business Journal - Comcast is set to purchase Plaxo which currently provides a free service that updates and maintains the information in your address book. Plaxo has also become a social networking tool (Pulse) much like LinkedIn. So, as a Comcast user and subscriber, I'm wondering how long the platform will remain free.

Thomas Claburn of Information Week reported an hour ago on the story.

Claburn says:

"For Comcast, the deal provides an opportunity to make use of data about the 50 million people now under its umbrella. This may prove useful not only for marketing, but also for promoting content creation and communication. With a few more Internet-oriented acquisitions or partnerships, the cable service provider could develop a loyal Internet community, making it more competitive in the social arena with the likes of Facebook, Fox Interactive, Google (NSDQ: GOOG), and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)."

Here are some links to more of the news coverage:

REFILE-UPDATE 2-Comcast buys social network pioneer PlaxoReuters - 5 hours agoBy Yinka Adegoke and Eric Auchard NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, May 14 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has agreed to acquire ...

Comcast buys Plaxo websiteguardian.co.uk, UK - 5 hours agoThis article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday May 15 2008. It was last updated at 12:06 on May 15 2008. US cable company Comcast has bought ...


Comcast Buys Social-Networking Site PlaxoTheStreet.com - 6 hours agoComcast CMCSA will acquire social networking site Plaxo in a move aimed at unifying social media across the Internet and television. ...

Comcast Acquiring Social Networker PlaxoWashington Post, United States - 14 hours agoComcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) has acquired social networker Plaxo. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed in a Plaxo blog post announcing the news, but both TechCrunch ...

Comcast And Plaxo Invite You To The Marriage Of Set-top Box ...Washington Post, United States - 14 hours agoJust got off the phone from a tandem interview with Plaxo CEO Ben Golub and Comcast Interactive Media's Sam Schwartz. They weren't willing to talk money but ...

Comcast buys Plaxo: Will social networking and TV fly?ZDNet - 19 hours agoComcast has acquired Plaxo in a move that aims to make the cable giant’s interactive portfolio more social and potentially bring a little Web 2.0 to your ...

Comcast to Buy Plaxo for Social NetworkingPC World - 19 hours agoComcast will acquire social-networking company Plaxo to power upcoming community features on its TV, broadband data and phone services. ...

Confirmed: Comcast Bought Plaxo, Deal Closed TodayWashington Post, United States - 19 hours agoThe rumors were accurate: Comcast will announce their acquisition of social contact list Plaxo today. Financial terms are not being disclosed, ...

Comcast to acquire contact manager PlaxoThe Associated Press - 20 hours agoPHILADELPHIA (AP) — Comcast Corp. is buying contact management company Plaxo Inc. and plans to incorporate into all its offerings features intended to help ...

Comcast to acquire networking Web site Plaxo: reportForbes, NY - 21 hours agoSAN FRANCISCO (Thomson Financial) - Comcast Corp. is acquiring privately held social networking Web site Plaxo, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web ...

Comcast acquires social network pioneer PlaxoReuters - 21 hours agoNEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Comcast has agreed to acquire pioneering Web start-up Plaxo, which first sought to turn address books into social ...

Comcast to Buy Networking Site PlaxoWall Street Journal - 21 hours agoBy VISHESH KUMAR Comcast Corp. said Wednesday that it will acquire high-profile networking Web site Plaxo, in an effort by the cable operator to broaden the ...

Facebook Warned It Could Face Fraud Charge for Safety Claims - Associated Press

Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. — The social networking Web site Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there are safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.

"We expect an immediate correction eliminating the dangers exposed by our investigation," said the spokesman, Jeffrey Lerner.

Cuomo announced last week that he had subpoenaed Facebook after he said the company did not respond to "many" complaints by investigators who were solicited for sex while posing as 12- to 14-year-olds on the site. Officials from Cuomo's office discussed the issue with Facebook by phone and fax Friday after they said Facebook took three days to answer calls and e-mails from state investigators.

An official in Cuomo's office said he and others are scheduled to meet with Facebook representatives this week and anticipate changes will follow immediately.

"We said, 'You have got to make accurate representations on your Web site," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because court filings haven't yet been made. "What we told them is, 'Correct the language describing the site and stop marketing yourself as this pristine Web site ... parents have a misimpression. You can't mislead people."

Lerner said Facebook's contention of being safer than most sites was accurate when it started out as a closed site 3 1/2 years ago. But it's now much larger, and the safeguards and apparently the response times for complaints aren't what they once were, he said.

There was no immediate response to e-mail and phone messages left for a Facebook representative. But a statement issued a week ago stated the company was concerned about Cuomo's claim that sexual predators could use the site to meet with children.

"We strive to uphold our high standards for privacy on Facebook and are constantly working on processes and technologies that will further improve safety and user control on the site," Fcebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said in the statement.

Lerner said Facebook has continued to promise to cooperate.

The Power of the Associated Press

I don't beleive there is any media outlet more powerful than the Associated Press. Their stories get picked up from coast to coast and on national talk shows on a regular basis. For example, I was quoted this week by Tara Burghart, an Associated Press reporter, regarding childhood immunizations and anxiety. Today, when I searched my name in Google, I found 64 hits on the article which include the likes of CBS News, MSNBC, Fox News, The Chigago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Forbes, Newsday New York, and the Miami Herald. The story even hit the our local market and was covered by 6ABC and The Intelligencer which is our local daily.

So what's my point? Why does this matter to you? Because if you want good pick up on your news and it has national or international appeal, you should spend most of your time pitching the Associated Press!