Cincinnati Bengals cornerback and former Alabama Crimson Tide star Dre Kirkpatrick really should consider getting a new publicist. Usually, picking on people this incompetent at their jobs is too much of a low hanging fruit, but lots of journalists received this horrifyingly bad pitch, and I don’t know if any of them called out its horribleness.
I’m certainly not one of those right-wing nuts who worships the idea of Social Darwinism, but I do believe America needs a healthy amount of it. If you suck that terribly at what you do, someone needs to tell you that you truly suck.
Let’s start with the subject heading. Yes, Cincinnati isn’t the easiest city in the world to spell, but there was quite the typo here “Cincicannti.” And what’s worse is that the publicist sent this email a second time, 12 minutes later, again with the horrible misspelling.
Which brings us to the meat and potatoes of the Dre Kirkpatrick pitch letter. Behold the most psychotic font you’ll ever see:
ALL CAPS, so you know that YOU’RE YELLING!
BECAUSE YOU NEED TO SCREAM THIS! BECAUSE IT’S SO IMPORTANT!
That works if you’re sending a press release about North Korea launching missiles at the west coast. Of course, if that happened, you wouldn’t exactly need a press release to be aware of it. The BRIGHT RED ALL CAPS font is used here just to promote a self-published puff piece promoting Dre Kirkpatrick receiving the Bengals’ captain designation on his jersey.
It’s not big news.
Also, why would you want to push your client as the next Ray Lewis? You’re aware of Lewis’ public reputation? I mean he did hide the main piece of evidence in a murder case, and was charged with obstruction of justice. Not to mention the fact that Dre Kirkpatrick and Ray Lewis play entirely different positions, and this is comparing apples to oranges and…never mind…just please find a new line of work, Mr. publicist.
Dre Kirkpatrick deserves so much better than this.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network.Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN Omaha.
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