The Good, The Bad, The Spin

• At Freelance Switch, there are nice tips on writing a press release. Though geared toward individuals, the ideas are valuable for enhancing the relevance of all news releases.
• PRSA–the Public Relations Society of America–seems to just dump its new posts all on one day each week under the guise of “Tactics and The Strategist Online.” A series of posts strung together has the effect of diminishing returns; thus, perhaps it’s not an effective strategy.

• Netflix is taking the radical step of ensuring excellent customer service. What was once an assumed business creed is now being used as a way to be a market leader. This is a mixed blessing.
• The Wikipedia scandal has spread like wildfire. It’s extremely tempting to assume an anonymous identity to set the record straight–or, cynically, to bend it in our favor. For public relations practitioners, following PRSA’s code of ethics means, quite clearly, this practice should be avoided. I would say that anonymous postings or edits should be avoided publicly and privately. There are two other downsides to the Wikipedia scandal: One is that it calls into question the assumed glory of the democratization of information; two, it’s yet another reason that despite Wikipedia’s overall accurate information, there’s enough glitches in the system that it’s best not to be used as a serious source of information. (This blog will never reference Wikipedia as an objective information source until these glitches are ironed out.)

Consumerist, one of my regular reads, missed the mark today. Fortunately, most of its readers didn’t buy the line that public relations practitioners and journalists collude with one another to deceive the public with the practice of using embargoed news releases. One point that needs to be underscored is that embargoes serve a purpose for publicists, journalists and the public alike—embargoes can ensure media outlets all get the same information at the same time. In other words, one reason public relations practitioners use embargoes is to avoid playing favorites with journalists. In the end, the public wins because specific media outlets can’t then monopolize specific news items. With the exception of targeting specific media outlets for strategic or logistical reasons, it is generally accepted that playing favorites—giving certain reporters scoops, or exclusives—can backfire.  Comments below the Consumerist post also raise the issue of transparency. A visit to PRSA’s ethics Web pages is instructive.

 Consumerist, it should be noted, is well worth visiting because of the topics it covers. It is full of potential PR cases studies.

(EDIT: Reviewing my past post on Consumer Reports, I noticed the CR news release was embargoed.)