Let’s See, news releases are good for…?
May 21st, 2007 by Sterling Hager
Martin Waxman on his blog entitled my(PR)palette wrote and posted an item today entitled "In Praise of News Releases." You have to read it to get the full effect of what he's saying. But to summarize, he still gets a thrill out of the "for immediate release" line. He writes:
They’re a great leveler of the corporate playing field. They help define the scope of a business communication, contain useful information that sets the stage for more dialogue (including facts about the company, names of spokespersons) and tell you who to call if you want to follow up.
With all due respect to Mr. Waxman who impresses me as a good writer, it has become my strong belief of late that news releases are about as useful and relevant as the Victorian era calling card left in the silver dish in the foyer.
To be more specific, news releases are not the great leveler of the corporate playing field. News releases from Fortune 100 companies rise to the top. News releases from nobodys go nowhere. The useful business communication is more often than not a bunch of hooey, which I know from first-hand experience having written skyscrapers full of hooey in news releases in my career. They do not invite dialog because they are a one-way, out-only communication and if a company really wanted dialog, they'd call people or offer the news on a blog.
Most importantly, permit me to ask these questions: if real news is at hand, do you need a news release? Two, does anyone really believe that if a reporter wanted to call a company he or she couldn't figure out who to call if there were no such thing as a news release?
News releases keep traditional PR firms in business. They keep the news release newswire services happy. They delight board members because in most cases they don't know any better. They help populate web sites with new content. They keep internal comms people busy doing presumably productive things. But news releases for the vast majority of small and medium sized companies do nothing except adhere to a game that can never be won and which delights the leading companies in any sector because the big companies can outspend, out-talk, and out news release any and all up and comers. Traditional corporate news releases are dead.
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May 21st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I’m with Max, but for different reasons. Releases are good for recruitment, they allow companies to show business momentum, are important for investors. Note none of these things relate to actually placing a story — that is often done through pre-pitching and targeted media outreach, prior to the release going out.
Here’s an article from MarketingProfs where I try to make this (apparently) contrarian argument:
http://www.marketingprofs.com/7/press-release-alive-well-parente.asp
May 24th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Thanks for your thoughts on my post. I certainly cannot dispute your point about certain releases ‘rising to the top’. However, I was referring to the equality of starting with the same words (story) from the same place. I believe news releases do this very well. And, if you’ll permit me to borrow liberally from Mark Twain, I think rumours of the death of the news release are greatly exaggerated.
BTW, I checked out some of your other entries and enjoyed your perspective.