Mr Nulty made it clear to every reporter who joined the weekly newspaper he ran in rural Cheshire: "Forget about adjectives," he'd say, "what readers want is facts, the five Ws - who, why, what, where and when - that, and the correct spelling of names."
He was equally convinced that human curiosity is enough to make people interested in everything - so long as they are directed to the "wow" factor. "What do you mean there's no news this week? We've got 36 pages to fill." Then he'd explain how to elevate a homing pigeon report into a story of champions, hazard and tragedy: Prize birds lost in terror storm.
The same rules continue to govern news reporting, and media relations, today. Mr Nulty may have been dead for 20 years, but he and his contemporaries knew how people liked to have their information presented.
Armed with the "Five Ws" approach and a Nulty Interest Detector, there seemed absolutely no reason to suspect that the job of publicising Bristol's online advent calendar would cause a reshuffle of my top five list of PR terrors.
I am, after all, the woman who pulled in treble-figure audiences for a "lost" German comedy so awful stage-hands blocked gaps in the scenery to (unsuccessfully, alas) stop the lead actor from bolting. I wrote the inadvisably jaunty news release for a planned minor exhibition of the World's Worst Postcards which engaged so much international attention the gallery staff still flinch at the sight of a postbag. Hey! I even managed to keep the Archaos circus company off the front pages, despite the small(ish) accident with the dynamite.
True, the calendar project has a geographic drawback. It isn't centred on London. And as every provincial publicist knows, some "national" news outlets develop nervous tics when asked to look beyond the metropolis's borders. But that seemed minor. The site has broad appeal; it's cutting edge and it's a showcase of what new technology can achieve. It's also free.
Best of all, in order to enjoy it no one needs to make an out-of-the cosy-indoors journey in these days of rail delays and floods. It's all happening on the web. Turn on, log in and reach out - the project comes directly to you via www.electricdecember.org.
How wrong could I be? The PR campaign started normally enough - an explanatory press release to 300 or so named media contacts. Scant response. No non-Bristol takers. A flurry of emails is despatched. The only message in the inbox, a sorrowful "You have no messages". Another press release goes out. Zilch. More phone calls. More knock-backs. The offer of preview CDs attracts a woman in California who is somehow receiving messages meant for the Arts Council of England's new website. Finally, we promise free drink - and drink it ourselves, till morning when the truth dawns.
And the truth is that while the media are keen to run stories about the importance of the web and are using it for info sharing and gathering, journalism's five Ws mindset simply can't cope with world wide web news.
Television rejects web-related items because people and screens don't mix in accepted ways with, well, people and screens; radio shuns it because it's too visual; photographers stay away because it's not visual enough; the local press see the web as a world apart; the nationals think a site exists in its (too local) place of origin. No medium has adjusted to the fact that who, where and when have different meanings now that we all live in Netville.
W hen is "when" for a burst of creativity which will stay live till the server rusts and seizes? Where is "where" if a moderately-sized Bristol arts venue can mount 24 separate exhibitions of new technology art at one time, and accommodate more than 80,000 visits in a week?
The irony is that if we really were hosting 24 simultaneous shows it would be news. If 80,000 people were actually coming through the doors, there'd be a page lead in it, (probably "Arts Lovers Trampled In Killer Crush"). But it's all virtual, not quantifiable in five W terms, it doesn't fit the Mr Nulty pattern, it's not where the conventional media are yet at.
The danger is that others are further forward. Those 80,000 viewings aren't PR hype. It's what the site achieved within its first week. Despite scant print/broadcast coverage, word of mouth is taking the URL all around the world. And as this parallel e-news universe expands, it raises questions about the future of publications and programmes which haven't worked out how to assimilate it into their columns and airtime.
The information revolution isn't just about communicating news at higher speed, it's sparking a revolution in how we communicate and define news itself.
• Pam Beddard is a journalist and freelance publicist for arts, media and environmental organisations.
