Communication departments that wish to maintain the integrity of the news release and resist pressure to publish corporate blather can learn an important lesson from UPS. When executives there want to include trendy buzzwords, self-serving babble or indecipherable technical detail, the PR team stands firm. Media Relations Manager Norman Black, a former Pentagon correspondent for the Associated Press, sits UPS executives down and educates them about journalism and PR, and the need to be balanced and accurate.
The discussion can be tense, but Black says, “You have to be willing to push back, even when it’s not the popular thing to do.” He says the process lets executives “gain a much fuller perspective of what we’re doing to build the reputation of the company.”
Too often, communicators yield to pressure. Managers or executives who know nothing about news judgment or about the communication business cannot resist adding individual touches that serve their own agendas or their word-choice preferences. What began as a release emerges from a protracted, often inefficient editing process as a fluffy promotional flier that journalists (and employees) quickly dismiss with a snicker.
Communicators need to raise a red flag and force some important questions: Why are we writing this? Are we writing it so that a puffed-up internal audience can smile proudly and applaud each other, or are we writing this because we actually hope someone uses it? Why write the type of release that journalists will only ridicule or refuse to read?
Ownership of the news release belongs solely in the hands of professional communicators, who understand (or should) the news business, effective writing, the industry they are in, the company’s message, the influence of social media, and the way all of those are intertwined. Ensuring that a message is clear is part of the communicator’s job as a keeper of the company brand.
People outside communication, particularly those who are only peripherally affected by the issue, need to be told tactfully that their observations and suggestions are welcome, but major revisions are neither welcome nor necessary.
At UPS, if an executive thinks that industry jargon is acceptable, Black tells the person, “I will get you on the phone with that reporter, and you can use jargon all you want, and we won’t send him the release. Then see if you can get him to take an interest in your story.”
Even if the reporter routinely covers your industry, including jargon in the news release makes the information more difficult to process, and increases the risk that it will be misread. “Why would anyone want to take a chance, even once, that the reporters in your target audience are going to make a mistake and miss the message you want them to have?” Black asks.
In order to get management’s support on news releases, the communication department must be credible and trustworthy. If executives do not have confidence that the communicator has their interests at heart, they will simply assert their authority and insist the news release be sent as is. The communicator needs to say, “The way you wrote it will not get you what you want. I am here to help you, but we need to write it differently.”
As communicators try to establish greater control over the news release process, here are two points to emphasize to executives about making releases more effective:
- Be disciplined about word choice. There is never a need to use buzzwords—those trendy words that people use simply because they are accustomed to seeing and hearing them. If millions of others use them, they are clichés, which are boring, stale and, most important, vague. They do not tell the reader precisely what you mean. Words from everyday conversation tend to be shorter and more specific. They also are more familiar because they are the words the brain has been processing since childhood.
- Simplify complexities. Use examples, explanations and analogies to help readers link the unfamiliar with the familiar. Writing visually—moving readers from the abstract to the specific—will enable them to understand the company story. Using words that evoke imagery or that are at least familiar will help readers breeze through the copy.
The communication department does not work in a vacuum, and no one is suggesting that a news release needs no approval from senior management. But communicators are the ones on the front lines, working daily to develop the company’s reputation and maintain a good relationship with the media.
When management repeatedly insists on publishing self-serving corporate drivel, it tarnishes the credibility of the communication function and the company, increasing cynicism and making it more difficult to get attention when there is something positive to announce.
