A debate on my and other blogs has rumbled on for a few weeks over the role of the press (or news) release and whether these venerable old and maligned tools of PR can be replaced by blogs.
I have focused on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions’ Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), where a change is likely iminent that could clear the path for corporate blogs as a disclosure tool. Will that spell the end of the press release?
At a geek dinner Neville and I hosted in Atlanta last month, Auburn University PR Professor Robert French told us he’d been looking into the matter. Turns out there are more than 30,000 public notice laws in the U.S. that require the distribution of a news release.
In case anbody missed that, there are more than THIRTY THOUSAND U.S. PUBLIC NOTICE LAWS THAT REQUIRE A PRESS RELEASE.
“I am prayerful for a little more thought to go into the pontifications,” French said, noting that blog enthusiasts tend to talk as though they have been practicing PR for years. His comment is not intended to stifle discussion — only infuse it with facts. French himself is a blog enthusiast, having launched infoOpinions? at Auburn and requiring his students to blog on it.
Perhaps the press release should be dead. Perhaps blogs are one tool that can replace it. But the rapid advance of social media will continue to come head-to-head with laws that apply online as much as they do in the real world.
We recorded segments of the geek dinner (including Robert’s comment) and played them on last Thursday’s installment of For Immediate Release.
Shel Holtz
shel
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Technorati
Google
Reddit
Linkedin