Media releases are the most basic, simple
forms of controlled information that PR students learn in the first couple of
PR units at university. They teach you the layout, format, what to include and
writing style. These techniques are useful, but not universal and sometimes
outdated. The following points are important notes I have learned from the marketing
team at Hames Sharley that I would have never thought about.
1.
Media releases aren’t just organizational bragging pieces
2. Always send the release as PDF or
similar document that cannot be manipulated
3. You don’t get 2 – 3 weeks to draft one
like with uni assignments
In about the third week of my internship, I
had completed my final draft of a media release I had been working on the
previous two weeks. Pretty proud of it, confident it was in the correct layout
and all fancy in the HS template, I sent it on to the rest of the marketing
team. I was pretty shocked when it was sent back all marked up with about a
page of feedback. I was less upset than I was in awe. There was so much
realistic advise that I had been searching for at uni and never been able to
find. She slammed the piece for being a brag material rather than something
interesting that people would want to read and that editors would pick up. At
uni they teach you newsworthiness, I thought I had satisfied that but I had
presented it in a way that wasn’t interesting to the general public. This is an
experience I am extremely happy to have had and will not soon forget throughout
my career.
The next few releases I worked on were
simply project updates that consisted of about two sentences each to be sent
for a specific magazine segment. I finished them, pasted into the template and
sent to the marketing team for approval. Before sending them to the editor, Bec
(Marketing Assistant) provided me with a few pointers in the outgoing email.
She instructed me never to send a Word doc and only ever export to PDF. She
explained that this helps to decrease human error, maintain credibility and
hold parties accountable for the correct information. For example if the editor
were to open a Word doc and accidentally press a random key without noticing
and publishing it thereafter, it affects the magazine’s image, but if we can
prove who’s error it was, the appropriate party can take responsibility. It
also reduces incentive to manipulate a controlled piece of information which is
handy if your relationship with the editor isn’t necessarily strong.
At university, you get sometimes up to four
weeks to submit a media release as part of an assignment. I don’t see the point
of the assignment when this is completely irrelevant to timing in real life. I
assume in most cases you get only a couple days. Luckily at my internship, I
get about two weeks tops because I’m only there two days per week. If the
release is prolonged anymore than this, the information simply becomes outdated
and useless because editors will just look over it and throw it out. The
newsworthiness decreases with time. The more time you spend drafting it,
getting your facts right and finally sending it out, the less chance you will
have of it being published or even sent to be published. This happened to me
with my first release. I worked really hard but by the time I got around to
sending it out, the marketing coordinator said it’s only good enough for the
internal newsletter now. A fantastic learning, yet steep curve.
