Release Me

I was manning the assignment desk at a TV station in Texas, when I received a call from a public relations agency in New York City. The woman on the phone asked me if I had planned to cover a local event described in a press release she had sent me. I pointed out that my news crew would have to travel 2,000 miles to cover the story. I also noted that I received the release through the mail the day after the event.

I do not think she ever called me again, and according to a recent article in Information Week, she and her PR colleagues may soon be able to ignore the news media all together.

Apparently, a California-based research firm, Outsell, surveyed 7,000 "knowledge workers" and found that they prefer receiving their information directly from news releases rather than the trade press.

When IW reporter Thomas Claburn asked Outsell VP Roger Strouse why press releases have become so popular, he offered this response:

"It may be that press releases are easier for people to get their hands on," he says. "It may be that press releases are shorter and pithier. It may be that they're often times free and come right into an RSS reader."

Claburn dutifully noted that while IW is a trade publication, its parent company, United Business Media, also owns PR Newswire.

Of course, Roger's answer is somewhat ridiculous. As trade news observer and blogger Paul Conley notes , the blame lies squarely on the trade press itself, which often finds itself taking press releases verbatim and passing them off as journalism. Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR blames cutbacks in staffing at trade pubs, which forces the editors there to rely more heavily on press releases than home-grown reporting. Either way, I track industry clips on a daily basis and find it amazing how often our company's press releases end up within the confines of a trade publication without source attribution.

In sum, going to news releases directly just cuts out the middle man.

At the same time, Roger's analysis misses another equally interesting phenomenon. People will choose to read press releases only if they offer value, and many corporate news sites have the potential of becoming primary informaton sources. During the 9/11 terrorist attack, traffic on airline websites spiked significantly as web users sought out real time information about the hijacked flights and the passenger lists of those who were on board.

As corporations aggressively adopt communications strategies that involve both online newsrooms and blogging, they may change the reading habits of some highly targeted online audiences, but probably not broader, more general news readers. As a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project points out, even those Americans who rely heavily on the Internet for news favor sites managed by traditional media outlets by a wide margin.

The Outsell survey still offers a sobering reminder for journalists. If they fail to generate stories based upon their own ideas and observations, plenty of PR professionals are ready to fill the information vacuum themselves.