Why bad press releases make terrible spokespeople

‘Has this press release been seen by everyone?’ is a question that strikes a sense of dread into comms managers.

It means your carefully crafted words, designed to grab the attention of the world’s media, have to be approved by a number of senior colleagues around the organisation, many of whom may not have any comms experience, media training or understanding of how the media works.

Unfortunately, this lack of understanding and knowledge does not tend to deter them from recommending changes and the press release ends up being ‘written by committee’.

In previous roles I have held I was often left baffled by the list of people who needed to approve my press releases. Seeking their approval and attempting to incorporate their amendments was often more time consuming than writing the release in the first place. I would probably still have some hair if there had been fewer people with opinions involved.

But there is a far more serious side effect to this laborious quest for internal sign-off than my hair loss - it threatens your organisation’s message.

The more people involved, the greater the risk your release will look less like something designed to grab a journalist’s attention and more like a dreary official document destined to be deleted.

Colleagues from outside the comms world have a terrible tendency to add jargon into their recommended changes. They can’t help themselves and love to include phrases like ‘stakeholders’, ‘solutions’ and ‘best practice’ because they use them in meetings every day and think it sounds more professional.

The inclusion of jargon reduces the chances of the press release generating the coverage you are looking for. After all, why should a journalist spend time trying to work out what you are trying to say when the messaging is not clear?

And if this jargon is included in a press release there is a real risk your spokesperson will think this language is acceptable and interviews will be full of ‘synergies’, ‘traction’, ‘service users’ and other such awful phrases.

This results in the audience being unable to understand what the spokesperson is trying to say and will switch-off or zone out. Your organisation’s message will have fallen on deaf ears.

So how can you reduce this risk?

It’s not easy to bring about a change of approach, particularly when you are dealing with senior colleagues. But we have a few suggestions:

• Write your press releases a long time in advance to enable sufficient time for the approval process (although this clearly will not work in a crisis media management situation). This will give you more time to ensure any amendments are free of jargon or corporate speak.
• Give people a firm deadline by when they need to come back to you – and make it clear that no response by that time is seen as approval.
• Seek approval for reducing the number of people who need to see a press release before it is published. Challenge the idea of lots of people needing to see it first and explain the benefits a shorter approval process will bring.
• Clearly define and explain the role of the press release – it is to grab journalists’ attention and not to get internal sign off or approval on messages.
• Use different press releases for different audiences such as trade, print and broadcast. Not only does this give you an increased chance of your story getting picked up but by having a clearly defined audience you and your colleagues will not try and write a ‘catch all’ press release that appeal to no one.

Media First are media and communications training specialists with over 30 years of experience. We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers. To find out more about our highly practical Media Skills courses, contact us here.