Press release writing for dummies

Need to write press releases? Have a writer’s block? Is your name not Sharmila Faruqi? Then learn from her, goddamit, she’s the queen of press release writing.
Sharmila Faruqi is to press release writing what Sarfraz Nawaz is to today’s cricket: an expert without a portfolio, but with know-how of all issues concerning the times of the day. Sarfraz Nawaz took nine wickets in an innings at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1979, but what did Sharmila take? Other people’s intellectual capital, of course, for that is how a good press release is written.
Now, if you don’t have a weird Indian name – what with those confusing permutations of Vs, Bs, and Cs – and are currently not residing in a shack somewhere in downtown Delhi, hoping for a pittance from that PhD you earned from University of Amreeki Social Sciences, you are in business. Just ask Meetika Srivastava, an education specialist who probably spent a good part of her youth trying to specialise in Women’s Studies.
The abstract of her article “Essay on Women Empowerment” is printed on the website of the Social Science Research Network, and has been dated October 4, 2009. Srivastava writes: “In subsistence economies, women spend much of the day performing tasks to maintain the household, such as carrying water and collecting fuel wood. In many countries women are also responsible for agricultural production and selling. Often they take on paid work or entrepreneurial enterprises as well.”
Guess what, Sharmila says the exact same thing, not a word changed, on May 4, 2011. You could also ask poor Miqdad Sibtain, writing a piece eulogising Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on an obscure website called socyberty.com. The piece, published on December 17, 2010, was titled “Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, an Architect of New Pakistan.”
On April 4, 2011, Sharmila needed to send in something, anything on Bhutto’s death anniversary. Cue a Google search, and Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V. Best hai. Send the article to a number of English language publications, and one prints it with the headline “Pakistan’s architect.”
In short, dummies, the correct method of writing a press release is:
1. Log on to Google
2. Search for your desired topic
3. Go to a page on one of the last search pages
4. Choose article that seems honest but written by someone not famous
5. Copy and paste
6. Before every paragraph, insert your name, the word “said” followed by a comma, and then open quotation.
7. Read once, pat yourself on the back for a copy-paste job well done, and release to the media
See, it is so very simple. As our queen Sharmila says, “perfect ignorance” is perfect happiness. No wonder she writes these brilliantly loquacious press releases. “So what?” Your turn to plagiarise, c’mon have a go.