Posted: 31 Mar 2009 05:35 PM PDT
A friend was telling me today about a conference she has just attended that brought together a large group of public relations people with a smaller group of working journalists. The discussion had centered, as it often does at such sessions, on what journalists really need in today's demanding media world, and the merits of press releases.
The journalists unanimously said that news releases are useless. In fact, news releases - which are shared with everyone under the sun through blast email services - are the antithesis of what the media wants. Reporters - whether mainstream or online - are paid to find and report fresh and imaginative stories … stories that haven't appeared elsewhere.
The group of journalists told the PR people that all they really need is a brief, concisely written email that outlines a story, and no follow-up phone calls to check whether they got the email. The latter - the follow-up phone call - generally reveals an insecure PR rookie. What the media does not need is for PR people to aggressively pursue them with press releases - which rarely contains any elements of stories, anyway. Just give reporters a story idea, and let them run with it. That's their job.
I know that most news releases today have morphed into something else that's not really intended for the media but rather as self-serving promotion for organization, glowing announcements of generally trivial nature to make the suits in the corner offices happy. But the morphing has polluted the media waters, and here's why - many PR agencies today are shoveling out news releases to the media in a style that has not changed much for decades, except that today's digital delivery methods have replaced envelopes, stamps and fax machines. It no longer works.
By the way … thanks to Tom Foremski and SiliconValleyWatcher for the Die Press Release graphic. It's from a story Tom wrote on the subject in 2006.
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