Chopping up news releases won't make a difference

Why are some folks so obsessed with changing the format of the traditional news release?

Reporter Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher has an idea -- completely "deconstruct" the news release and turn it into a series of disparate components. He writes:

"This way, as a publisher, I can pre-assemble the information I need to complete my news story."

Yet, a well-written news release is ALREADY assembled as a news story.

In fact, I wrote a news release two weeks ago that ran -- in its entirety -- in a handful of online publications and news wires, and prompted one call from a major newspaper that led to a feature interview.

Why would I want to change that?

Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications -- one of my favorite PR bloggers -- put together a "social media news release" template a week or so ago that was interesting. But aside from including links and tags, it seemed to be a standard release that was simply taken apart.

Tom seems to think that changing the format of the release will eliminate spin and puffery. I doubt that. The skill of the writer and the willingness of the client to be straight-forward won't be helped one iota by a chopping up everything into bites.

What is that saying they used to be so fond of in tech world?? Garbage in, garbage out?

Still, Tom is forging ahead.

"... over the next few weeks, I will be working with representatives from Edelman, Shift Communications, Eastwick, and many others that want to create a standard format, standard labels/tags for the New Media Press Release."

Good luck with that.

Me? I'll stick with my original premise. It's not about the format ... it's about the content.