After a brief stint in private radio, I began my career in public relations. I worked for a great little company called The Haibeck Group as director of new media. Back then, Netscape had JUST gotten background colours. People still used gopher. (<sigh> I miss gopher.)
Anyway.
One of the jobs I had to do was to write news releases and send them out to the media.
Then, I had to make the dreaded follow-up calls. Follow-up calls are the worst. Frankly, most journalists who answer these calls are abrupt and even kind of condescending. (It’s why I always take a moment to listen to a pitch and, if it’s not right for me, explain why so they can get some value out of the conversation.)
Today, as the National Technology Columnist for the CBC, I get a lot of news releases, nearly all by email. And it has interested me that, despite all the progress we’ve made in digital media and newsgathering, that the venerable old news release hasn’t changed its form.
There’s the lead paragraph, followed by some bullshit quote from a senior executive (”I’m pleased to announce the blah blah blah…”) and then usually a string of meaningless brand names… er BRAND NAMES… and no real sense of the news value or the real story.
And so, I would like to propose a new format for media releases.
With the kind permission of the p.r. person behind Bell Canada, I have done a revision of their news release issued yesterday.
Here’s the news release, as sent to me:
Bell adds iPod™ and mobile phone compatible
MP3 downloads to Sympatico/MSN Music Store
DRM-free music catalogue playable on a wide range of music devices
TORONTO, October 2, 2007 – Bell Canada today announced the availability of unrestricted MP3 music files on Sympatico/MSN Music Store musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca. Canadian consumers can purchase downloadable tracks playable on a wide range of compatible music and mobile devices, including iPod™ and MP3-enabled mobile phones.
“As Canada’s leading internet service provider and online portal, Bell continues to build and offer the most robust online entertainment portfolio, including music, video and gaming,” said Kevin Crull, President, Bell Residential Services. “The addition of MP3 tracks to Sympatico/MSN Music Store furthers our commitment to offering Canadians the very best entertainment experience.”
Because these downloadable MP3 tracks are Digital Rights Management (DRM) free, there are no limits on the types of music devices or number of computers on which purchased songs can be played. With more than a half million MP3 tracks currently available and more being added every week, Bell offers tracks some of the world’s best selling artists, including The Beatles, Coldplay, Norah Jones, Keith Urban, Gorillaz and The Rolling Stones as well as best selling Canadian acts Nickelback, k-os and Stompin’ Tom Connors. Sympatico/MSN also offers one of Canada’s largest selections of French artists, including Claude Dubois, Marie-Mai, Ima and many more.
In addition to being compatible with a variety of portable music devices, Bell’s DRM-free MP3 downloads can also be enjoyed on a wide range of MP3-compatible Bell Mobility phones.
Bell is offering MP3s from several independent labels as well as EMI artists, which can play on any portable media player or computer and can be burned on to CD, all without fear of viruses, corrupt files, spyware and pop-ups that are often associated with music download sites.
Consumers continue to have the choice of purchasing DRM-enabled Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. Albums in MP3 format will retail for the same price as DRM-enabled albums, while single tracks cost as little as 99 cents.
For a full listing of today’s’ hottest MP3 titles, please visit musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca
* iPod is a trademark of Apple®
About Bell
Bell is Canada’s largest communications company, providing consumers with solutions to all their communications needs, including telephone services, wireless communications, high-speed Internet, digital television and voice over IP. Bell also offers integrated information and communications technology (ICT) services to businesses and governments, and is the Virtual Chief Information Officer (VCIO) to small and medium businesses (SMBs). Bell is proud to be a Premier National Partner and the exclusive Communications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. For information on Bell’s products and services, please visit www.bell.ca. For corporate information on BCE, please visit www.bce.ca.- 30 -
For media inquiries, please contact:
Okay. Let’s look at this release.
First, it reads like an ad. It’s promotional in nature and it seems to be really concerned that Bell’s division president gets his meaningless (sorry, Bell, but it’s true) quote in there. Here’s the thing: No reputable journalistic outlet would print or broadcast that quote. It’s pointless. It says nothing.
The problem, I think, is with the form of the release itself.
Today’s journalists and bloggers (they’re part of the media too, after all) are bombarded by more and more releases. Many of them don’t read past the headline.
That’s why this release’s headline:
Bell adds iPod™ and mobile phone compatible
MP3 downloads to Sympatico/MSN Music Store
is flawed. Almost half of the headline is taken up with brand names.
And, frankly, this headline doesn’t say what the real story here is: That Bell is now offering unrestricted MP3 files to Canadians cheaper than anyone else. That is the story here.
And so, here is what I would propose as a new news release format. It contains the bare essentials, in bullet-point form, to catch the eye of journalists. It still includes the obligatory crappyquote from the executive, but it’s written in a simple, non-hyped style.
You can download my proposal for the Media Release 2.o [PDF].
(P.S. It’s a News Release or a Media Release. Don’t call it a Press Release. Presses refer to printing presses, and thus exclude electronic media like radio, television, and the Internet.
Have a look at my proposal for Media Release 2.0 and I’d love to hear your comments.
Tod Maffin is a popular keynote speaker, national broadcaster, writer, influential blogger, and uber-nerd. [
14 Comments
I like it. And you’d probably have lots to talk about with Chris Heuer (www.socialmediaclub.org/category/new-media-release/) and Shift Communications (www.shiftcomm.com/).
Oh, you always were an idealist, Tod. (Sniff, it’s, well, charming, in a way.) Tod, you keep thinking that news releases are written for big media, who care about such niceties as a news story. But they are not (as my old landlord Tom Haibeck, I’m sure, would quickly point out, along with the rest of the PR guys in the country). They’re written for the client, the one who writes the cheque.
The client would like to get some “press” out of the effort, of course, but the client is a marketer, and probably the one who dreamed up the brand name, which is, glory be, now in typeset form and lookin’ good. Did I mention the marketer showed the news release to the Boss, who also wouldn’t know a news story if it… well, you know.
As long as the brand name is there, as long as client’s quote — which the PR guy writes most of the time — is there, as long as the news release gets delivered to the vertical-trade mags and blogs that fuss about the industry segment in which the brand name or corporation wants to star, well, then, sir, the job is done, since they’re likely to reprint it practically whole.
The delivery to the big media, that’s just blow-by. And, hey, why not — e-mail’s cheap — and it might be a slow news day. I mean, look what happened when Segway released one of their news releases on a slow day!
Peter Morgan,
Morgan News, Morgan:News:2010, http://www.Morgan-News.com
Hi Peter - great to hear from you again.
So, if I understand your comment, you’re saying that some clients are more than happy to just accept seeing the release? or sending it to trade journals?
—
Sent from my iPhone
Gosh, Tod, this will NEVER work. It’s clear, direct and intelligent! ;-))
Hey Tod
I love your 2.0 release format and think it would work well for big media. I can appreciate Peter Morgan’s comments as well however.
I’ve worked in PR in the non-profit social service sector for a number of years and it is often community news outlets that cover these stories. At times, I’ve had community and grassroots news outlets print almost my entire media release.
Just as we must tailor the media release content for the particular outlet, perhaps we need to tailor the format to fit the outlet as well. Big media wants the broad strokes main messages whereas smaller outlets sometimes need the story drawn out for them a bit more. In their case, they might prefer the release to be written like a newspaper story.
Deborah Zanke
http://www.messagecommunications.ca
I agree with you Donna (taking into account your sarcasm) in that this won’t work because it’s too GOOD.
Not being in a consulting role but as an in-house person in charge of PR, I have to constantly walk the fine line of knowing that newsworthy, well written releases are the only things that will be beneficial and, therefore, used and keeping the “powers that be” happy.
Rather than, say, doing something worth writing about, I am told to find a way to put out a release so when one of our other divisions puts together the monthly “clipping” report, our company is not left off. Doesn’t matter what the mention is, where is came from or whether it matches our PR goals (which I’m still not sure what they are). Just have to make sure we’re on the report because it goes to the powers over the powers that be.
Ultimately, I hope things like this and the SMR catch on. It’ll make everything better!
It’s unfortunate that needlessly complex press releases go out to stoke the egos of the few when what the many really want is a clear and simple announcement.
Hi Tod -
Glad to see you get excited about this concept. This is a topic of great interest in the PR blogosphere.
You can check out our Social Media News Release template at http://tinyurl.com/g5wuc and the hundreds of reactions to it here: http://del.icio.us/SHIFT.Communications/SHIFTtemplate. It’s an ongoing debate, for sure.
Would love to hear more of your feedback once you’ve had a chance to peruse some of this content!
Nice Tod … I like it. I used you as my source for my post since I’m not on Bell’s list at the moment.
That release is much more relevant and gives me the information that is important that I’d like to share.
Tod:
really nice job, well thought out
Best always,
-Peter
Tod,
As others have posted here already, there has been lots of talk of re-imagining the news release to fit social media, and it all makes lots of sense. But I think the purpose of the release isn’t really about sending media pitches. I’ve been in the PR biz long enough to remember when weeklies did print our releases word for word, but those days are gone. A news release has now become background info, just like all the other stuff on a client’s website. When many PR folk pitch nowadays, we write specific emails targeted to our pitchee, something I know you advocate. I usually put the release at the bottom of a pitch, because reporters usually want to read the background. At least I find it working that way lately. But many old-school media, and yes, they are the ones the client gets excited to see, do still like the wire feed with all the familiar releases. Give it ten years, the newer version may win out.
Bottom line. If you present the right news at the right time to the right outlet it should get a run. Trouble is most PR people can’t identify what’s news.
I am a PR student, and the way we are being taught to write news releases is how you wrote it Mr. Maffin, except that we are taught the traditional format. I really don’t get why news releases look like that (just take a look at the headlines on newswire.ca). We are taught to write about the news and how it’s relevant to publics, basically, and that they should be short and simple — and must definitely not sound like blatant advertising. If I had a choice I would write them in point form as well. Great proposal for a news release.
next time (first time?) we are in the same room, i’d really like to talk to you about this. in fact, if you’ve got time in the next few days, let’s go for coffee, tea or another beverage and chat. lots to talk about.
(@colleencoplick)
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