Recently, a friend in the communications field sent me a link to a blog that essentially espoused the “death of the press release”. The premise of the author was that journalists didn’t like them anyway, any good journalist worth his or her salt would do original research anyhow, and they were usually only self-serving tools for the companies that pushed them on unwilling media.

While I understand the resistance of any so-called “serious journalist” to swallow a press release verbatim, I think the idea that the press release has no use at all is a false one.

For one thing, and this is key, we have noticed that with recent cutbacks to staff at many media outlets, there is a need for information but not always the resources internally to source and write the texts required. At the same time, there is a demand for more content, especially with online media, which combined with a lack of resources, means that many outlets are looking for ready-made stories to share with their publics. We have had numerous occasions over the past six months where various media have reprinted a press release in whole or in part, in both print and online outlets.

Which brings me to the notion that instead of abolishing the press release entirely, that we need to rethink how it is composed and begin to apply a more “journalistic” approach to our writing. Many criticisms can be found online about bad press releases, including one site dedicated simply to collating all the other blogs and reviews of poorly written communiqués.

And of course, there’s the famous saga of Wired editor Chris Anderson blocking all press relations people who sent him press releases that he equated as nothing more than spam, including publishing their emails, which might be argued to have crossed the line.

But a well-written press release tells the story in such a way that all the essentials are covered early on and in the cases of media who don’t have a real live person to further research and cover the story, it can be reprinted as is and be interesting for their readership. If you are looking for a reporter to go deeper and cover the story from a unique angle all his or her own, then that’s where the “relations” part of PR comes in, where you find out what the reporter needs and try to satisfy them. For the reporter whose curiosity is piqued by the story that you have so well-described in your release, the document you produce is just the starting point and an opportunity to have some background before writing the story he or she wants to write.

It’s that simple (and that hard, of course). Do away with the press release altogether? I don’t think so: we’d be losing out on some key opportunities with media who don’t have the staff to cover our story, and miss the chance to stir the interest of the journalist out there who might want to know more.