Just saw this funny today.
One of the big ironies being a journalist in South Africa is how incredibly bad some people who work in communication (and who get paid to communicate) are in South Africa at actually ... communicating.
When I haven't taken my Ritalin, having to co-incidentally see some "announcement" or news on social media is the second biggest gripe that can set me off and lead to a meltdown worse than Chernobyl.
Personally my biggest gripe is when PR's - supposedly in the business of building and maintaining media relationships - can't be bothered in the slightest to just even tell you beforehand that something newsworthy is happening and I have to read it after the fact.
People get money to communicate their brands - in my case TV shows and channels - to the South African press and journalists.
Yet a lot of them take that money and do ... nothing or below minimum nothing - in the "process" actually harming and inflicting damage to those brands.
It's also gotten worse the past few years, not better - and I've been covering just South African television for 15 years now, so I have perspective.
With more and more TV channels, more and more shows, more and more fly-by-night PR companies and publicist and all kinds of trashinations rising up and wanting in on the game, its gotten worse since there's more and more people who are clueless and who don't know and/or simply don't care what they're doing or don't know how to do what's supposed to be done.
There's also some really great people who've just always been great. People who are not scared to do the actual hard work to represent their companies, their shows, their channels, their brands.
People who stand firm and realise they're the wall and that that money they get is because they're supposed to be the first line of defense when media wants answers and information for good or bad stories and when the rest run away.
I truly salute the responsive, relentlessly available, honest and good PR people out there working in South Africa's TV industry and who knows what's going on, who cares and who actually do the hard work.
You are amazing.
For the rest of the uninformed lazy, can't-be-bothered Robins - slap, slap, slap.