Is the press release dead?

Hello!

Last post, I did a little introduction about the agency where I did my internship placement. Today, I’ll go on to the little nitty-gritty daily things we do in the office!


Looking back, I think I’m quite lucky. Prior to my internship placement, I have heard horror stories about how some interns were stuck with doing media monitoring for a long period of time or just weren’t given enough public relations work.

Thankfully, while I had my fair share of media monitoring, I did get to try other PR activities. Of these tasks, there were some which I enjoyed more than others and some which I felt were more meaningful than others.

Press Releases

According to Jane Johnston (who is co-author of our Public Relations (Principles) 201 textbook), “the best-known communication tool is the media release, also called a press release, news release, media alert or media announcement”.

At GHC, on average, there is at least one press release going out to the media each month for each client. Not all clients may request for other PR activities such as press trips or media luncheon, but almost all clients come to us for press release generation and distribution.

With the high volume of press releases going out each month, it is probably little surprise that I did get to try my hand at actual press release writing. Till date, I have helped draft three press releases for a client.

However, this is one of those areas which I realized there is a gap between school and real life.

In school, I really enjoyed press release writing exercises. They encouraged creativity and made us think out of the box to write a good press release. After all, theoretically, press releases should be creative, fresh and newsworthy. They should be different so that they catch the attention of the journalists.

Theoretically, they should be different.

In truth, press releases aren’t always newsworthy, as I realized.

No matter how creative you are, there is still a certain brand image to maintain. And even if you had no problems with the brand image, there was always the problem of a client insisting in having a press release for certain “news”.

Once, I got tasked to draft a press release for something I felt had no newsworthiness to the media. It didn’t matter that I thought nothing of the news as a consumer; the press release had to be written and distributed because the client felt that it should be distributed to the media.

This reminds me of the question that always pops up: is the media release dead?

Pitches

Forbes reporter Aaron Perlut has ananswer to the question above: he feels that the traditional press release is in many cases, irrelevant. His survey with other reporters revealed that it is often the personal relationship journalists have with PR practioners and their pitches which count.

Now that I’ve gone through my internship at GHC, I finally understand why personal relationships and pitches count more than press releases.

As compared to press release writing, I have had more experience with pitching to the media. On my second day of work, I had my first try in drafting a pitch. In less than a month, I have already tried pitching three press releases to the media.

If I had to pick the biggest lesson I learnt throughout my internship placement, it would be the lessons I learnt from pitching to the media.

In the last PR Professional class that I went for, in one of the slides, I saw a quote along the lines of this: “I used to think I was the only one who was afraid to call up the media. Turns out I wasn’t the only one!”

Confession time: I was afraid to pick up the phone and call up journalists too.

Somehow, there was something scary about picking up the phone and calling up someone I only knew by name but not by face. I have worried about whether it was the right time to call or if they would be dismissive of me. It was a daunting task for me, despite the fact that I had no qualms about talking to strangers.

Eight weeks into my internship, this daunting task proved a problem for me. A press release which I had pitched through emails but not followed-up by phone was not getting enough coverage like the client had wished for. While it could have been that the news was not newsworthy enough for the media, I was at fault as well as I had not followed-up as I should have done.

Reflecting back, I have to say this was a very meaningful experience.

It reinforced what we learn in school about following up and building relationships with the media. Good media relationships make the work easier because there is a personal relationship and it makes everything less daunting.

I guess this is another of those ‘what-you-can’t-learn-in-school’ lessons.

With much love,

Magdalene

15096324

Curtin Singapore

Next post: More work in the office!