Next On The Hit List: News Releases

July 23 Update: Auburn University PR professor and blogger Robert French, who writes InfOpinions?, provides some insight into what his students are learning with regard with "new media" and how to use it on behalf of clients. But he says news releases are still part of the mix!

First it was e-mail. Now it's news releases.

How about smoke signals or drums? Can we still use those?

Amy Gahran, who calls herself an "info provocateur" on her blog Contentious, joins the "PR pinata" brigade and challenges public relations people to stop sending news releases.

She says we need to quit blaming journalists and clients for our reliance on traditional forms of communication.


Concept, yes. Execution ... ??

She also says PR people need to "re-envision our entire communication process, to think about how we can participate in the public conversation more fully."

Can't argue with that last point.

And I agree that most news releases are lame -- in their execution.

Like just about every aspect of agency media relations, they are relegated to the lower levels of the food chain where inexperience and lack of skill doom them before a single finger hits a single keyboard button.

But the concept of the news release itself -- or as Amy would prefer, a fact sheet -- is still viable today.


Who cares?

In her post, for example, Amy links to a previous take on the subject where she questions why a company would send out a news release about a new VP.

Who cares?, she asks.

Well, I can tell you that when I was promoted at Bates Southwest, my news release received wide publication in a number of industry pubs, local community newspapers, the Houston Chronicle, my alumni magazine, a couple of websites and so on.

In most of those cases, it ran word for word, with no editing.

I think that example shows perfectly that a news release -- even on a subject many people don't care about -- can still do the job well.


Are we thinking creatively?

As for her challenge that we think creatively ...

There are plenty of PR people using creative and/or different means of distributing information:

• Events of all shapes, sizes and styles.
• Grassroots community activities.
• Interactive technologies.
• Word-of-mouth campaigns.
• Blogs.
• Direct mail.
• Bylined articles.
• Newsletters.
• And of course, the dreaded e-mail pitch (which Amy champions here)

Heck, some people even build giant frozen treats in a park!

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