please empty your brain below
I am still laughing at the reference to U-boats :)

PJS | 11.07.20 - 7:24 a.m. | #

My impression is that, other than in the mainstream press, there is very little original reporting these days, it's mostly based on press releases, often just word for word.

Keith | 11.07.20 - 8:49 a.m. | #

I'm confused by the analysis of "The riverboats will be branded as Uber Boats by Thames Clippers and the service will launch later this summer." If the correct brand doesn't have an 's' on Boats then how has the Evening Standard missed it off? And if two papers ignore the second half of the name why is it underlined?

dg writes: Because I'm wrong. Updated, thanks.

PS. Also laughing about U-Boats.

Sally | 11.07.20 - 9:26 a.m. | #

This insulting spoon-feeding is why people aren't buying newspapers anymore. Also has anybody noticed how the front page lead story photos are often the same, regardless of which newspaper? Journalism dead and gone. If this riverboat service ever gets going, it will be forever known as the U-Boat service - great !

Rick | 11.07.20 - 9:58 a.m. | #

Due to his many amusingly cynical looks at announcements I have long suspected that DG's former day job was to draft exactly these kind of marketing releases ;)

Jonathan Pilborough | 11.07.20 - 10:01 a.m. | #

I wonder what exchange of money is involved in the financing arrangements. It seems an elaborate way of making it possible to buy a phone ticket, but logical to use an existing multi-modal platform to do so. I'm not aware of cab pricing, but if the boat is comparable or favourable, then if I had the app, and were in shouting distance of a pier, then I'd take the boat. A lot of ifs.

NickW | 11.07.20 - 10:02 a.m. | #

...and whichever financial organisation currently has its name on the boats doesn't get a mention, and already seems to have been purged from the Thames Clipper website. They should have written into the contract that they had to be credited til the end!

Andrew S | 11.07.20 - 10:37 a.m. | #

Copying-and-pasting press releases all day. What a soul-destroying job that must be. I suppose at least it can be done from home.

JohnC | 11.07.20 - 11:00 a.m. | #

Is this actually news?, the press release is just a prepacked item intended for another prepacked item like a newspaper or website.

As to talk about a golden age, how much journalism was just meeting someone from a PR agency in a Fleet Street pub?, the only difference being that back then only a few people could see the strings being pulled.

Hopefully the punters will adopt the U-Boats name, then again they might be scared that it'll cost them their job in 30 years time, because the internet remembers.

Still Anon | 11.07.20 - 11:04 a.m. | #

Commuter style service eh? Perhaps that’ll mean they’ll also now introduce commuter style fares and frequency of service. (But then, I suppose that would simply be a commuter service.)

Thanks for restating this important point about the blurring of lines between PR and journalism, DG. Particularly enjoyed reading about that fake quote trick.

And Jonathan - I’ve often wondered that myself ;-)

Sam | 11.07.20 - 11:05 a.m. | #

Couldn't find a Press Release on Uber's website, but the one from Thames Clippers is here.

dg writes: See link in my first sentence :)

Barry S | 11.07.20 - 11:32 a.m. | #

Hmm. Perhaps I can do better:

“Huge multinational company Uber spends a small amount to put its name on some boats again. This time the boats are in London. The boats will keep running to the same places and the same timetable, but with some slightly different branding. People at Uber hope you see their advertising and use their app, because there might be one person in London who has not heard of Uber already (this marketing exercise might make a small splash for little money, so won’t dent the bottom line too much, and measurable results don’t really matter). The company that runs the boats hopes a few more people will use them: while they claim to be a commuter service, really they are for the tourists, because they are quite expensive and slow, and often run almost empty.”

Andrew | 11.07.20 - 11:34 a.m. | #

Of course the real story is that Uber still hasn't got its car hire licence renewed.

While the U-Boats might give the impression TfL like Uber, I am interested to see that TfL have made it clear this was a deal done by Thames Clippers alone.

Don't then expect any extra discounts for Oyster/Travecard users.

ap | 11.07.20 - 12:40 p.m. | #

So basically Uber want to remind everyone that they exist in an environment where booking a minicab instead of taking the tube might be marginally more attractive than it used to be, at least until the roads are all permanently clogged with traffic and people realise that minicabs are as much of a germ petri dish as a train, especially as people taking trains will be paying more attention to hand-washing and mask wearing.

Paul | 11.07.20 - 1:59 p.m. | #

These bloody computer geeks, they've made it lazily easy.
Basically cut and paste is as tawdry a practise, if not as dangerous as good old fashioned cut and shut.
How is it anything other than cheating when used like this?
There's no art to it and it's become so commonplace that there's hardly any attempt to at least disguise it using your own words like some of us might have tried in school exams.
Do they not cut marks or even penalise plagiarism anymore?

JP | 11.07.20 - 8:35 p.m. | #

Computer geeks have made plagiarism lazily easy, sources report.

According to industry experts, cut and paste is basically as tawdry a practise as good old fashioned cut and shut, if not as dangerous. "There's no art to it," said one.

The practice has now become so commonplace that hardly any attempt is made to disguise it, as (for example) some people will remember from attempting to use their own words in school exams.

"How is it anything other than cheating when used like this? asked commenter JP. "Do they not cut marks or even penalise plagiarism anymore? '

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.07.20 - 8:36 p.m. | #

Paul, train companies are rigoruoulsy cleaning all their trains, spraying them with viruscide that lasts for a long time - they're doing loads to make service as safe as can be at the moment. Much much more than a minicab.

Geofftech | 11.07.20 - 8:49 p.m. | #

I love how The Register usually refers to the utterances trotted out in these pieces for what they are - "canned statements."

tops | 11.07.20 - 11:00 p.m. | #











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