Last week I received an email inviting me to attend the 63rd World Newspaper Congress at "the world's most compelling destination!"
Egged on by the exclamation mark, it was hard to resist opening the email. The world's most compelling destination, it turns out, is Beirut.
I have little doubt that Beirut is indeed one of the world's most compelling destinations, though perhaps not for all the reasons that Lebanon's tourist board has in mind. The email assured me that the New York Times recently called Beirut "the world's number-one place to visit".
That's fine. It's always sounded like an interesting city and I would indeed like to go there some time. But my issue is not about Beirut and whether it is really the world's most compelling city. My concern is the use of hyperbole, which may be acceptable, if annoying, in some contexts but is unnecessary when associated with journalism.
The email goes on to assure the reader that Beirut "breathes history in every sense". Really? In every sense?
When I opened the link to the Congress website, I was confronted by another classic example of hyperbole: "Come to the place the alphabet calls home." If you don't believe them, just ask the alphabet. It doesn't say which one.
Any discussion on the use of hyperbole would be incomplete without reference to perhaps the most misused word in journalism: 'literally'. Try it out: next time you see 'literally' in a newspaper article or on a website, or hear it on radio or television, ask whether any degree of exaggeration is involved. Invariably there is. A BBC radio news style guide had this cautionary tale: "An excitable presenter once prefaced an interview with the words: 'Mrs ... is a woman who has literally been to hell and back.'" A world exclusive, given astonishingly little prominence.
And just in case you were wondering, no, I won't be attending the 63rd World Newspaper Congress. My invitation will probably be withdrawn anyway. Literally.
