Between a post Trevor O’Donnell recently wrote on bad press release practices and someone emailing me a press release where they spent two sentences explaining in the email that the price on the attached press release was wrong–instead of just changing the press release, I figured I had the moral duty to revisit a great post I wrote on a number of years ago.
Matthew Stibbe offered tips on writing “Press releases for human beings” He provides some very simple guidelines for writing press releases. Check the related links at the bottom of the post for some other good posts on the subject.
However, as I did when I first wrote the post, I wanted to point out Stibbe’s very valuable advice for clearing the previous version histories from your documents before sending it–or just creating a PDF.
Often what has been deleted from a press release is far more informative to journalists than what was actually sent. By viewing the deleted content, journalists can glean insight into a far more interesting story than the one you are willing to tell.