Budding journalists and people writing for journalists (that’s you, PR people) could do worse than read the Guardian’s writing guide to journalism out today.

The introduction by columnist and former Times editor, Simon Jenkins, is a must-read for anyone tasked with communicating news via the written word.

He recalls a “ferocious sub editor” at The Times who would - after a reading a draft report - pose the million dollar question: “What is it you are really trying to tell me?”. Exactly what PR people should be thinking before they lay a hand on a keyboard.

Great tips for crafting a great story include:

- make every paragraph a single idea.

- Make nouns and verbs the workhorses of each sentence.

- Delete all adjectives and adverbs unless absolutely essential.

- Never use sloppy words, such as “interesting”.

- Begin every story with who, what, when and where.

But excellent writing - a skill which Jenkins sees as deplorably absent in today’s society - is the lesser part of the journalist’s armoury; the signs of the natural reporter are curiosity, the desire to communicate experiences, cunning and the gift to narrate. As he says, there is “no substitute for the person who saw it happen”, which opens the door for what we now know as citizen journalists.

When I hear colleagues talking about “the press release” or even truncated to “the release”, I shudder. A press release is merely a tool, a medium for the really important element: the story - that is what journalists are looking for.

Maybe that’s pedantic. Maybe I should’ve been a sub editor.

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Why do I feel like someone’s trying to put me on the street?

Now, anyone can cut and paste their press release into the press release grader and get an instantaneous report on its quality and effectiveness.

Frankly, I’m not overly worried (yet) and I think it’s a bit of fun for PR practitioners to play with. I also think that Robin Wilson is a terribly polite  about it on his blog.

While I don’t agree the press release is dead (not many national journalists will say “press release? Nah? Let’s talk about it over coffee”) the press release grader doesn’t help those getting a bad score to really understand how they need to put it right. Done well - usually by professionals - the press release can be a powerful tool to spread a (operative word) good story far and wide. In fact, magazine staffs are so pressurised that a well-written release can sometimes be cut and pasted wholesale, particularly online.

Nice toy, but no substitute for real experience and good old-fashioned news sense.