Sunday, April 26, 2009

I Agree Whole-Heartedly... Die Press release, Die Die Die!!!

In class this week we read Tom Foremski's article called Die! Press release Die! Die! Die! In it, he discusses how useless the current format of press releases really are. He suggests that public relations folks should stick to giving the facts of what they are announcing, throw in credible quotes, and basically keep the spin out of the release. Foremski calls for well organized, factual, unbiased, helpful information rather than the typical biased information filled with meaningless quotes that press releases usually contain. I agree with Tom Foremski on this topic. In my PR class my teacher suggested that we write the press release in a way that the journalist can almost print the story as is. She was very specific about where you place each part of the press release, and even required us to watch several videos on how to make a proper press release that were posted on YouTube. It seems that all of this effort was a waste of time when a journalist is asking us to do quite the opposite. It just makes sense to send a press release that is basically a fact sheet for the journalist to use when writing a story. It contains the information they need, credible sources with good quotes, and remains unbiased so that the story will be credible. Thanks Mr. Foremski!

1 comment:

Ginny said...

Well I agree yes, and no. I think press releases are a little bit out dated considering the developments in Web 2.0. But, I don't think that PR specialists should send pitches consisting of only the facts.

Journalists can choose what they want to pick up. If you cater a press release to a journalist in a way that you know will be more appealing to him or her, then you've affectively pitched your story. If you put together the story the way you want to, I really believe that the journalist will more likely publish your idea the way you pitched it.

Just my opinion, but I stand by the press release!