The Think Room

The news release is dead! Long live the news release!

For the sweet love of kung-fu movies, I can do without one more post on the demise of this traditional news vehicle. Don’t get me wrong, both the value and the role of the news release are evolving, but a news release is just as important to the communications industry now as it was 25 years ago.

But let’s get something out of the way first—thanks to the FaceySpaces, social media has turned the news-sharing process on its head. Now, both people and brands have the ability to livecast news and events in real time: from commentary on event atmosphere and attendance, to insightful nuggets of wisdom from a spokesperson or speaker. If anything, social media has created a culture where anyone—brands and people alike—can be an amateur journalist, speaking in 140-character missives. As such, traditional journalists (what does that even mean anymore?) can now stay on top of the news by following live tweets and hashtags as they happen.

So what’s the point of a news release then? It’s not the optimal format for sharing news; the need for internal feedback makes this process a little too time-intensive to quickly spread the word (#bottleneck). Instead, news releases have become the long-form, archival format that embodies the running history of a brand. Without them, our 140-character headlines have no anchor, and eventually are sucked into the ether of the InterWebs once they are no longer searchable.

Whoa, heavy.

To boil it down, the takeaway is this: It makes sense to share “news” in real time through basic facts, but we should archive news through rich stories and formats that endure.

-Tony Saucier, PR Associate Account Director and Social Media Strategist