I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have sent out a press release longer than 300 words. Is what you are suggesting really easier to deal with than a 300 word ASCII text email? Seems hard to believe.

Totally agree, Tom, mostly about the need for change...Your ideas are interesting, and I've challenged my team to broach with a handful of forward-thinking clients. I posted some additional ideas for how to blow-up and re-create press releases here:

http://pr-squared.blogspot.com/2005/08/press-releases-suck.html

(And plan another article on this same topic tomorrow - thanks for the inspiration!)

Thanks Todd, I'm glad I can help move things on a bit :-)

I agree that press releases have become bloated, meaningless exercises in bullshit, but aren't you basically just asking PR people to do journalists' jobs for them? THAT is the problem with mainstream media now - they've just become stenographers. Hell, that got us into a war in Iraq, practically.

According to what I see up there, this adds three pages to the communication on top of whatever news is to be conveyed.

*sigh*

In any case, it'll be a great day when folks like the SEC see a blog post or an updated RSS feed as "disclosure." Until then, we're stuck with stone knives and bearskins.

The companies want the best possible spin for any news about them. Sometimes there may even be no news at all, but a PressRelease can still generate some buzz and free advertisement.
You seem to think that companies should try to inform the public/journalists as honest and factual as possible. Can you explain why this makes sense in terms of press releases? Sure, it may be the right thing to do on a blog (at least today - who knows about tomorrow), but the press release and later the news reaches different kinds of people, a lot will be lazy and eat whatever spin is in the story.
You can also argue from the standpoint, that if it's not your own people giving stories a spin, it will be somebody else and those people having other interests may do it in a way that hurts you. Look at all the negative Press Google got in 2004 over what was nothing. Had they worked harder to get _their_ message out, the thing would have never grown the way it did. As it was it was a perfect opportunity, for other people to tell "the story of google" which hurt them.

Why do I recommend "honest and factual press releases? Are you serious? Why would you want a press release that is otherwise? You'll be found out and you will lose trust with the reporters AND the readers.

"You seem to think that companies should try to inform the public/journalists as honest and factual as possible. Can you explain why this makes sense in terms of press releases?"

Because you and your client will look like idiot idiotvichi if you do otherwise.

I can hear the conversation now floating through the hallowed halls of the SEC. "Hey Chris! (Christopher Cox...Chairman) Hey whaddya think about making blogs compliant for public companies? Hey I got a better idea...how about using tagged chunks of clearly-written content delivered via RSS? Hey Chris...hey Chris...hey hey Chris!"

There are at least 5,500 public companies in this country that won't be dancing on the grave of the press release anytime soon. "Hey Tom! Hey Tom...wanna try life as a lobbyist? Hey Tom!"

Dee, I don't need to be a lobbyist. The SEC is interested in factual and material information about a public company be distributed and published as widely as possible. To that end, press releases are a failure--most make it into the delete box. There is nothing in SEC regs that says you should send press releases in the current manner or format...

I love it when all news releases (and PR writers, for that matter) are bunched together. Sorry, Tom, but blanket statements, or posts like you made make little sense, on the whole. Yes, you have some good points to consider in your suggestions.

But, think of all the media out there. Consumer and trade, national and local, print, Internet, TV, radio, etc., and etc.

I humbly suggest you read my post on this topic, and the nearly dozen comments with opposing and similar views.
"News releases are still legitimate PR tools" http://www.mikespoints.com/archives/001265.html

News releases are just tools. You can't have a formula for all the purposes there are for a news release. The smart PR pro will write a release with certain goals in mind.

Take care,
Mike

Boy what a post. I have to agree with Tom. Press releases are becoming more and more standard files for SOX compliance. They hardly do anything in a completely interactive, real tie, high velocity, and transparent Internet.

Tom has the guts to call it out!

It’s called global communications.

It’s all well and easy to talk about the death of the press release or at least creating a modern version of it, but don’t forget that companies act in a global market place. Whereas in the US blogs might be in the process of becoming a good corporate outlet, the rest of the world is still trying to create a website that doesn’t look like an online brochure. A part from some early adopters (mostly politicians trying to reach young voters), the blogosphere is still a very mystic area to most of the members on corporate boards outside of the US (and if I’m not mistaken even in the US), let alone a tool they would use for global communications. Being a global company implies an understanding of local markets, and local media outlets. If you take into account that for example Russian reporters get only 1% of their information from the Internet, the need for a solid news release in local language is evident. If the world is your market you need to communicate in a way that’s understood by most of that market. A good percentage of European trade reporters still want to receive news releases per fax, and I haven’t heard of any technology that can make tags work on a fax. I agree that most corporate press releases can be more to the point, but that’s a matter of good writing and pursuing the client to loose useless information and quotes. Don’t get me wrong, we (European PR people) are constantly looking for new and effective ways of reaching out, but we do realize that we will not change the world over night. The press release is far from dying because it is still the most effective way to reach your global audiences.

Cora, I would say that blogging has very little to do with the need for a modernized press release. The dominant form of publishing content today is now in an online format--that's why I use EditPlus, a sleek text/html editor--and not a wordprocessor.

Why not offer corporate news in an online format, that means providing the source code for a online page so that it can be quickly integrated into a site's design format--no matter if it is a blog or the online site of a newspaper. Add a ton of links--I can edit them out or add more. Modularise the release so it can be tagged and reused and with less room for error. There are many easy, straightforward things that can be done right now. Take a look at the example from Julie Crabill at Shift. Yes, it took a few extra hours to prepare--but it makes it a lot more useful. And we can take it further from there.

The real question is: Is the press release created for journalists or for the client. It seems the latter.

I'm writing a book now titled "Life After The Press Release" which covers this very same topic. Your ideas are priceless.

Brilliant, Tom, brilliant!

For people who worry about the length, consider what Tom calls "pages" here as "sections" -- and not all releases would contain all sections.

And of course, for releases on non-financial/public disclosure topics, the tags (and resulting section mix) would be different.

This makes much more sense. And there could even be a section called "angles" in which PR folks could continue to push their spin. (They're going to do it anyway, might as well give them a place for it.)

I'll write in Contentious.com later my thoughts on what you've raised here, but I think you've offered an excellent option. Thanks.

- Amy Gahran
Contentious.com
RightConversation.com

The reason press releases still exist is because media people and corporate people still want it, no matter how much noise they may make otherwise.

Here's a bit of inside info from the PR field: no one makes a lot of money writing press releases. If that is all a firm does it is not getting paid much...when any idiot can do something, it becomes a commodity. And guess what: any idiot can write a press release. It's just a freakin' template, for goodness sakes!

If journalists and companies want to kill press releases, please do it, and quickly. It's just a satire, and since I write satire (www.stooples.com), I know it when I see it.

Are you kidding? Any PR agency worth its salt should do exactly as Tom suggests - it's a win for everybody: (1) journalists get to write their stories faster, and (2) the companies that send out their stories in this format are viewed as providing "facts"...the perfect cover for even more spin.

The only hurdle, I agree, is that very few PR agencies or departments are technologically savvy enough to do this.

To Angry Crying and et al: Relatively few media outlets are technologically savvy enough to handle the news releases Mr. Foremski is advocating.

I'm not bashing the media. But, like PR and ad firms, there's a wide range of tech savviness in media. No one size fits all as you, Mr. Foremski and others are seem to think.
Live and work in the real world, not the techno-world many seem to stay in.
Mike

Mike Driehorst said above, "Relatively few media outlets are technologically savvy enough to handle the news releases Mr. Foremski is advocating."

Not necessarily. What Tom describes could be handled via print as well as electronically. You could deliver it by fax or carrier pigeon if you wanted to.

The point is to categorize the information presented so it can be used efficiently, eliminate the hype, and stop forcing journalists to wade through your spin in order to assess a story's real potential.

And realize that the vast majority of press releases get instantly binned because journalists hate them. Communication only works if it works for the target audience. If most press releases don't work most of the time, especially for media outreach (their ostensible "main purpose"), then something really basic is wrong with that approach, folks!

Live in the real world, not the "swallow your own self-justifying hype" world that many PR pros seem to live in.

IMHO, of course :-)

- Amy Gahran
Contentious.com
RightConversation.com

Excellent discussion here! I love all these points of view. I've been away at the New Comm conference and my electricity was turned off because I hadn't paid the bill, but I'm back and will have something more to say on this topic. I think I might even have found the coup de grace for the press release... :-)

The press release will always have a place and moving it ahead with the times is a good suggestion. How many of you take the approved press release and paste it in the bottom of an email as fyi but the real way of getting the traction is through the short, concise, relevant pitch? We've been looking at ways to improve the press release and our clients are on board. Not surprisingly, they too want to cut through the clutter. We've taken a lot of our learnings through our experiences in the UK, Europe and US and in other sectors besides tech. Hopefully, with all of us working together we can get there!

I think press releases are for the press. But companies are using them to brag about accomplishments and what not with the real intended audience to be a regular citizen/user/lay person, not a journalist (but I think maybe getting written about by a real journalist, especially when the press release already has some spin, is like trying to win a lottery). Instead, companies that do this should be blogging. They are using an old and inappropriate delivery channel intended only for the press. They need to be writing to is their constituents (customers, partners, etc) via a company blog. (I know this is a month later, but oh well).

It's always fascinating to read other perspectives and Tom Foremski's is definitely other.

First, the time it takes to get a business press release approved by all corporate levels is often long and tedious. Some people understand deadlines, others don't or don't care. Legal is a whole 'nother layer that sometimes requires the above process be repeated. His proposal to complify the existing situation would help him as a publisher not me and not the reporter.

Second, if press releases are dead, then why do reporters act like fish being fed when a release is distributed at an event or a speech?
It's because they rely on them to get the official spin before giving it their own. And, because it helps them make the deadline they need to meet that is as unforgiving as the corporate structure through which that release went to get to them.

It ain't broke, Tom. Please, step away from the keyboard slowly and keep your hands where we can see them.

If you manage any aspect of the PR process for a public, US-based company, please consider taking no more than 5-6 minutes of your time to fill out a short survey on how your company is currently using press releases: http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=508372.

I'll share the results on our blog.

Arent *poorly written* press releases already dead? They're abundant, to be sure, but I see no reason to fret over self-promoting releases that end up in the trash bin as long as mine are successful. Survival of the fittest.

It is important to remember about distribution of the message. See the idea of "promotion through contents" from http://www.en.think-a-head.org/?p=53 Maybe there should be more education and information in the content of them, better to share on blogs and social media tools

It's always fascinating to read other perspectives and Tom Foremski's is definitely other.

First, the time it takes to get a business press release approved by all corporate levels is often long and tedious. Some people understand deadlines, others don't or don't care. Legal is a whole 'nother layer that sometimes requires the above process be repeated. His proposal to complify the existing situation would help him as a publisher not me and not the reporter.info

They need to be writing to is their constituents (customers, partners, etc) via a company blog.

good!

Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful.

Hmmm. That's a pretty big statement. I think clever communicators - regardless of who they are - will always get their message across.

The real barrier is that press release writers have more KPIs to consider than your average journo.

This, however, seems to be shrinking, and that their world is currently changing.

As an industry, we can empathise, or look at where we need to be.

Are we backing the right horse? And if so, what are thier new needs?

I say this now as some media outlets have got it wrong.

Here is my suggestion. Change the rules of the game.

Do no longer accept press releases in written (paper or e-mail). Instead, request that press releases are delivered in person.

Organize a waiting room for the press release delivery agents. Windowless, no ventilation, no A/C. You get the idea. Let them wait there for hours. If they have something interesting to say they stay.

Hire someone to administer an IQ test on them prior to grant them admission to an editor. Finally, if they don't tell a coherent story in front of the editor, send them out again.

Jaro: Good luck with those proposals. BTW, you missed the carrier pigeon option....

I think many of you are looking at the corporate news releases required by the SEC, but there are also the press releases emailed out by PR people to journalists.

I get a bunch of press releases as the editor of Stirred Up. Maybe it's different in the tech industry, but most of the ones I get are completely irrelevant to me and thus get immediately deleted. What I'd like to see is better targeted emails. I don't mind a press release if it's actually relevant to my work, but most of them aren't! Of course, because at least a few will bite out of the millions of emails sent out (like spam emails and, really, what's the difference?), there isn't much incentive for people to improve the targeting of press releases. Perhaps part of the blame lies with media database companies whose entries are too broad. A PR person would have to enlighten us on how it all works.

The press release is dead because they're ususall bullshit and some wonder new media apparently makes it obsolete.

Trouble is the same people that write the CONTENT of the release will also write the brave new world of company blogs. So they're guaranteed to be DOA aren't they?

It's the message and messenger that's the problem, not how it gets to your eyeballs.

Tom, I don't believe that reporters, who are typically swamped, are going to take the time to sift through the proposed multiple pages of content you are suggesting. Can the press release be overhauled? Yes but I don't think your suggested approach is efficient enough for busy newsrooms or for the companies themselves that also need to reach out to their constituents with the same updates (shareholders, customers, partners, etc.), who certainly aren't going to be sifting through the suggested pages of quotes, etc. to piece together what's going on. You claim that the press release is dead but most companies are still developing and distributing them on a daily basis. If they didn't work, they would go away. I think news announcements will continue to be a viable tool. I hope that agencies and companies can continue doing a better job of keeping them concise and factual while doing their best to direct them to the right folks.

Tom,

Great insights here. I agree that press releases should drop the marketing fluff and stick to the facts. Cisco tested this recently with a Social Media Release (using a template provided by Tom Deferen). The response was positive, people seemed to like that they could create their own 'spin' and use the collection of quotes and assets provided in the release.

~ LaSandra

All of your suggestions have merit. But none gets to the heart of the communications problem to which that tattered and crippled device, the news release, bears witness.

In earlier but no less mendacious days, the news release worked well because both sides of the communications equation – speaker and auditor – learned their craft in the same tough newspaper academy: the police beat or local political reporting under the whip of a professionally unpleasant, cynical city editor. Lying in print was a cardinal sin. Objectivity was a holy grail. Facts were sacrosanct bullets. Credibility was all and generally irretrievable..

Accordingly, a hungry news reporter who tried to improve his lot in PR knew when he slipped an “advance copy” of a press release to his old buddies at some neighborhood saloon what would fly and what would not. Facts could be artfully assembled in the most favorable light; but they had to be facts, and they had to be there. Lying destroyed credibility. No one would write cute stories about how cleverly you performed your illusions.

The news release as viable communication has died because today most of the players on both sides of the process are inadequately trained and hopelessly inexperienced as objective news reporters. Both sides are fakers, spinmeisters, fact manipulators. And both sides know that. They have institutionalized fakery and spinspeak.

In a world of near total fakery, the prizes go to the fake with the best bag of tricks. The simple news release has been tarted up and trotted out on the streets far too long to fool even the most naive. Accordingly, it appears for the most part only as a symbol of something going on.

But one can hope. There is nothing wrong with the news release that a couple of jaded police reporters on each side of the equation couldn’t cure.

All this uproar concerning Hacks vs. Flacks boils down to one fundamental aspect and that is this: Journalists fear they are been ousted from their profession by the PR industry - and in turn are trying to fight back although pathetically. Journo's will continue to piss and moan until the cows come home but in truth it will only be themselves that lose out at the end of the day because the PR industry will turn their back on them and present their rivals with what’s they really need "news".

So, rather than feel threatened by PR (which all you Journo's obviously do) embrace the fact that both industries need each other and work terrifically well side by side.

Wake up and realise you are dependent, and if you cant cut it, get out before you get pushed.

How about if the press release does not die per say, but is reborn or at least evolved?
It's pretty obvious now that most people do think of a press release title at least in terms of popular key words for SEO.
Which does make Tom dead on.

Claudia: Yes, the press release will evolve, and will be reborn into many variants such as the social media release. And we might even have links in the press release one day... :-)

The use of the pr wires to reach the public seems pretty clear. It works to seed the releases on lots of sites. But do journalists really still value these services? I have been wondering if the wires are still valued by their traditional audiences. Do they really want the emails? There have been some general surveys lately that seem to come close, but do not ask the question. I just popped up a survey and while certainly not overly scientific I am hoping to see if there is any consensus.

http://www.quis.com/2008/02/15/complete-the-journalist-survey-rss-vs-pr-wires

Dan, you make an excellent point. I use news releases just for some background info, I get my news by speaking directly with company execs. Yet companies such as businesswire charge $1000 and more for sending out news releases... There is a perception that the news release wires have some kind of direct presence in newsrooms, which is not the case. I fail to see the value provided by services such as PRnewswire or Businesswire, or the value of most news/press releases in their current form. The Internet provides a much broader distribution medium than the wire services for virtually no cost. And the information should be in a format that is both machine and people readable, and the source clearly identifiable. This fulfills all FD requirements to their fullest extent, far more than the current practice of press releases sent out over over-priced wire services.

Thanks for bringing up this topic. As a PR student, I'm having trouble reconciling new media with traditional methods of PR. I've learned everything from media kits to blogging and in my internship, I've had the chance to sharpen my news release skills, not just formatting but making it newsworthy and catchy. This lets me know that I need to hone my other media skills in order to ensure that my message gets out.

The slow death of the press release
Tom Foremski wrote a post about this in 2006 but the progress has been slow. Two years later, social news releases are starting to gain traction but they tend to look like deconstructed versions of standard news releases.