The faith the PR industry has in press releases seems totally out of proportion to their actual value.
It is tempting to say most of them go straight into the bin, but that assumes we printed them out in the first place.
I can sort of see why large companies want to hone their message to perfection; to be content with what they are sending out into the world about themselves, even if the world greets those messages with a yawn.
So, the point of those press releases isn’t really to attract the interest of the press. The audience is internal as much as external.
Otherwise, well, a huge amount of effort goes into PR that isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps clients are kept happy by the sending out of releases into black holes. But it would surely make more sense to attract the interest of one journalist anywhere with the offer of an exclusive, than to attract the interest of none, anywhere.
No?
