Comments on: PR’s love affair with press releases

By: Humor? PRNewswire and BusinessWire say bah humbug

Humor? PRNewswire and BusinessWire say bah humbug — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:38:49 +0000

[...] Of course not. Anyways, most of the content distributed daily via the newswires is so bad it is [...]

By: Are PR people boring or just bored?

Are PR people boring or just bored? — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:03:21 +0000

[...] much as it pains me, companies still use press releases as the preferred method of news distribution. However, what pains me even more is the lack of any [...]

By: The dumbing down of media

The dumbing down of media — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:02:48 +0000

[...] blogging: Minimize the use of the dreaded press release and instead focus on developing your own corporate news channel that distributes information via [...]

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:52:49 +0000

@Mark Check out the last link in the post. Corporate websites/blogs can satisfy Reg FD too.

By: Mark Addison

Mark Addison — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:44:36 +0000

For publicly traded companies there is the issue of SEC minimum disclosure regulations, which is legally satisfied via wire distribution. But I agree that the wires (and press releases in general) are over-used. What’s funny is that clients *want* to send them… even when we tell them they are wasting money. So at the very least, we try to keep them to less than 400 words.

By: Sean Dougherty

Sean Dougherty — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:10:20 +0000

I’ve been in media relations for 20 years now and I wonder, hasn’t it ever been thus? My first question to any client who asks about issuing a press release is “What would it look like if we made it a pitch?” Press releases as a form retain value because they put key information in one place and have the proper vetting to ensure they truly reflect what the company wants to say. Using wires to distribute them is a perfectly good way to make them easy to find for anyone who wants to find them. However, expecting them to generate journalism? Please. I started calling them “news” releases rather than “press” releases years ago because so few of them target the press.

By: Chris Sledzik

Chris Sledzik — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:29:26 +0000

Great post, and excellent comments by Jeremy and Greg. I agree that the problem isn’t so much with the format (i.e. the press release), but more with the distribution method.

As the only PR pro at my company, I’ve used both wire services and “hand-made” distribution lists to distribute press releases. In my experience, while using wire services can generate more placement on the Web, this coverage isn’t nearly as effective as working directly with journalists from specifically targeted magazines. A number of sites may copy-and-paste the content of the release distributed on the wire, but using a narrow focus and leveraging relationships with the media ensures that our news appears in magazines our customers actually read.

It may take some extra time to build these lists and establish these relationships yourself, but the end results are more powerful than using static-filled wire services.

By: Guy Fisher

Guy Fisher — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:20:22 +0000

I wish I had’ve read this a few weeks ago. When we did a ‘blanket’ launch for our Australian website http://moneysavingmaster.com.au , I was talked into paying extra for a wire service. The response was non existant. Yet a couple of emails to the relevant journalists worked wonders.
I guess in the world of electronic media the journalists have got ‘press releases’ coming to them at every angle.
Are there any journalist reading this blog who’d be able to give their comments on their thoughts of the wire versus other sources?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:15:35 +0000

@Edward You calling me a liar? This is not just perception. I’ve been looking into this topic for years, including speaking with journalists who bear the brunt of poor quality press releases (and pitches) on a daily basis. You can see one study I did here. Another great resource is the Bad Pitch Blog. They’ve built quite an empire upon a steady stream of bad press releases and pitches.

By: Edward M. Bury

Edward M. Bury — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:04:54 +0000

Hello:

Your main premise here — that a majority of news releases may have little to no true news value — certainly has validity. But be careful when making statements like:

“Go to any corporate site and you would be hard pressed to find a handful of press releases (or social media news releases) that had enough news value to warrant their distribution.”

“As a point of reference, most companies don’t generate more than 5 major announcements (unless of course you’re a large company like Microsoft).”

What statistics or research did you use when coming to these conclusions? I trust it’s basically your perception.