Working with Press Releases: Newspapers are besieged by individuals and organizations seeking publicity. Large newspapers can receive thousands of news releases and other requests for publicity each week. Even small, town newspapers receive hundreds of releases in a week.
For most news organizations, however, news releases are an important and convenient source of information and story ideas. No news organization can afford to employ enough reporters to cover every story occurring in a community. Instead, news media depend on readers and viewers to notify them about church and school activities; charitable events and fund. Raisers; business and medical news; art, music and theater events and schedules; speakers; and festivals
Reporters handle news releases like any other type of story. Their first task in dealing with a release is to identify a central point. If no central point can be found, the reporter discards the release. If a central point is there, then the reporter identifies the relevant information and discards the rest. Reporters also use the central point to identify what information is missing.
Reporters then critically examine whatever information the news releases provide and summarize that information as clearly, concisely and objectively as possible. The task often is difficult because some news releases fail to emphasize any news. Others contain clichés, jargon and puffery. Moreover, most fail to use the proper style for capitalization, punctuation and abbreviations.
Typically, editors will discard 100 news releases for every three or four they accept. Even those they accept often have to be rewritten. Some editors do not even open all the news releases they receive in the mail. Rather, they glance at the return address to see who sent the release, then immediately throw it away if they recognize that it came from a source that regularly submits trivial information. For example, journalists are unlikely to use a news release from a company that has no presence in a community or surrounding area, such as manufacturing plants or franchise outlets. Yet some companies send out announcements about the promotion of executives at corporate headquarters hundreds of miles away. Few news organizations will use such releases because they are of little interest to people in their community.
The worst news releases, usually those submitted by local groups unfamiliar with the media, fail to provide all the information that reporters need to write complete stories. They also fail to provide the names and telephone numbers of people whom the reporters might call to obtain more information, or explanations of unclear facts. Some news releases provide telephone numbers that journalists can call only during the day, not during the evening, when the reporters employed by morning dailies and the broadcast media often work.
Some editors do not use news releases as submitted. Instead, they have their reporters rewrite them, confirming the information and adding to it with quotes and additional facts.
These editors may explain that they want their stories to be distinctive. Also, they may distrust the accuracy and truthfulness of the information submitted by publicists.
Other editors use news releases primarily as a source of ideas. If editors like an idea provided by a news release, they will assign a reporter to gather more information about the topic, then to write a story about it. Sometimes the published story is much different from the picture presented in the news release.
