Tahlequah Daily Press received a call recently from a woman describing herself as a “PR person” for a nonprofit entity. She’d been sending press releases to newspapers, but had yet to see one published. We think we know why.
Over the past few years, most newspaper staffs have noticed a tendency of “public relations” or “communications” folks to send releases as PDFs or jpegs (.JPG). This is puzzling, because while PR staffs have grown exponentially, newspapers staffs have become smaller. The impulse to expand PR staffs – by businesses, institutions, politicians, or organizations – is understandable; it’s the job of these writers to produce positive stories about their employers.
It’s not that the “stories” aren’t well-written; most PR people are former journalists who have taken on new careers due to better hours, more time off, and better pay. PR and communications specialists deal in positive spin; journalists deal in truth, which means the negative along with the positive. One key function of a PR specialist is to do everything possible to ensure journalists overlook negative traits of their employers. It helps if the PR people are nice; too often, they’re demanding and condescending, which doesn’t win them any points.
Since the effectiveness of PR specialists hinges on their ability to get their material seen, it stands to reason they would provide it in a format their targets can use. But with local exceptions of NSU and the Cherokee Nation, most PR folks now provide “images” of words they’d like to see published, rather than the words themselves, in text form. And while broadcasters might be able to read from these documents, newspapers and online publications can’t. They have to type up what’s on the images – and these days, publications don’t have typesetters.
Most images with words on them started as a text file, so it’s tough to understand why the sender doesn’t provide the text version. Almost every day, TDP has to plead for this, and sometimes, we’re asked, “Can’t you just type it yourself?” This week, a woman became irritated when asked by a person in another department to email an item to our newsroom. She wanted to know why the person to whom she handed the flyer couldn’t just take it to the newsroom, and implied the employee was “lazy.” We suggest it may be the other way around.
TDP and other newspapers welcome press release from all facets of the community. In fact, since TDP is looking for a new sports editor – a process that will take time! – we’d appreciate parents, coaches or players dropping us a line to tell us what’s going on. We have one stringer, but he can only do so much; we’ve been trying to hire more, but it’s tough to find someone who both understands sports and is grammatically proficient, and who has the time and energy to contribute. Anyone interested in helping should email kpoindexter@tahlequahdailypress.com. In the meantime, we’d appreciate it if readers would refrain from making snarky comments about photo quality. Our stringer doesn’t have a camera, so he’s doing the best he can with his cell phone. We pay contract photographers, too, by the way.
Help us spread the word: We want press releases, and photos. But we need them to be typed, in the email field, and sent it to us, or attached as a text file. Photos can be attached as jpegs, but they need captions, with everyone ID’d, front to back row, left to right. Asking us to decipher flyers and other images not only requires time we don’t have, but it increases the likelihood of error, and no one wants that. If you want something in print, email it to news@tahlequahdailypress.com, and if you have requests, we’ll try to honor them if you’ve given us enough lead time. We’ll help you get the word out, if you’ll help us do it!
