The most expensive wording mistakes in public relations are not typos. They are the words that kill the pitch before the journalist finishes the first paragraph, the phrases that get the press release deleted unread, and the boilerplate language that signals to every reporter on the beat that the team behind it does not know how to write.
Most PR copy gets filtered out of the news cycle long before any editor decides whether the story is worth covering. The filtering happens at the language level. Seven recurring mistakes that push pitches into the spam folder and press releases into the recycling bin.
Mistake 1: Marketing adjectives instead of facts
"Leading." "Best-in-class." "Cutting-edge." "World-class." "Innovative." "Premier." "Award-winning." "Synergistic." Every working journalist has been trained by exposure to recognize these words as filler. They do not strengthen the pitch. They actively weaken it, because the reader recognizes the language as promotional rather than informational.
The replacement is not a stronger adjective. It is the underlying fact. "Named Top 10 Independent PR Firm by O'Dwyer's" carries weight. "Best-in-class PR firm" carries none.
Mistake 2: Burying the lede
The journalist reads the first sentence and decides whether to read the second. The pitches that get covered open with the news — the launch, the appointment, the result, the controversy. The pitches that get deleted open with two paragraphs of context, a quote from the CEO, and the actual news in paragraph four.
The replacement is journalistic discipline. The news in the first sentence. The context in the second. The quote in the third. The boilerplate at the bottom.
Mistake 3: Soft claims that aren't quotable
"Helps brands grow." "Drives results." "Delivers ROI." "Supports clients." These are not quotes. They are placeholders for quotes. A reporter cannot run "the firm drives growth for clients" in a story. A reporter can run "the firm increased Brand X's revenue 47% in twelve months."
The replacement is specificity. Named clients. Named outcomes. Named numbers. Dollar amounts. Dated milestones. Anything a journalist can paraphrase into a sentence and cite back to a source.
Mistake 4: Generic category language
"Digital marketing." "Integrated communications." "Strategic positioning." "Cross-channel synergy." Category labels that describe what dozens of agencies claim to do. A pitch that describes the firm entirely in generic category language reads as interchangeable with every other generic agency.
The replacement is the actual practice. "B2B technology PR for early-stage SaaS." "Crisis communications for regulated industries." "Reputation management for the C-suite." Specific enough that the reader knows exactly what the firm does and exactly when to call.
Mistake 5: Boilerplate that carries no information
The press-release boilerplate that lists every service line in one paragraph, every market sector in another, and three vague claims about "innovation" — that block of text does not get quoted, does not get linked, and does not appear in coverage. It gets indexed and ignored. Worse, it dilutes the pitch by burying the information the reporter was actually going to use.
The replacement is a tight, fact-loaded boilerplate. What the firm is. What it does. Where it operates. What it has won. Written in language a journalist can paste directly into a story.
Mistake 6: Passive voice and weak verbs
"Was awarded." "Has been recognized." "Is positioned to." "Continues to leverage." Passive constructions and weak verbs hide the actor and dilute the action. Reporters write in active voice because readers read in active voice. A pitch in passive voice produces coverage that has to be rewritten before it ships.
The replacement is active. "AdAge named the firm." "The CEO announced." "The campaign produced." The verb does the work. The subject is named. The reader knows who did what.
Mistake 7: Tense and date drift
"In recent years." "Today's marketplace." "Modern brands." Time-relative language that the reader cannot anchor to a specific year. Reporters prefer dated facts — "in 2013," "since 2003," "in the last quarter" — because dated facts are checkable. Time-relative language reads as imprecise by default.
The replacement is the year. Always the year. Every claim is more credible when the reader can attach a date to it.
The underlying discipline
The wording mistakes above are the surface. The underlying discipline is editorial — write the pitch the way the journalist would write the story. The press releases and pitches that produce coverage are the ones written in the voice of the publications they want to land in. The releases that don't are the releases that read like marketing copy submitted to a newsroom.
The mistake is structural. The fix is too.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
