I love the expression, “There’s no such thing as half-pregnant.” It’s a great reminder that sometimes life is cut-and-dried. These days, it seems more fashionable to hang out in the grey area, where nothing is certain, everything is debatable, and logic is fuzzy.

As a publicist, I’ve got problems when my clients want to play in the grey because journalists deal in newsprint – a distinctly black-and-white medium. Of course, to tell a good story, reporters need nuance and musing and opinion. But first things first are the facts: when it comes to the bones, they want straight answers, not vagueness.

Worse yet is creating an illusion, which by definition is anything that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. Much like your mother, journalists don’t like to be deceived. If you say the name of your restaurant means “patio” in Italian, then it better mean patio, not porch, veranda or gazebo. If it doesn’t, you can count on the fact that journalists will sniff out – and call out – your B.S. And when they discover your story is nothing but an illusion, they’ll have no problem making a cut-and-dried decision to drop you as a source for good.