RSS and Media Relations: Is There Still a Role for Publicists?

Aside from the fact that the average PR person isn't particularly technical or Internet-savvy, there's a larger issue: the average journalist has never heard of RSS.

In fact, I just got off the phone with a journalist from the CBC. He was asking about the local tech scene, and I had to explain what RSS was.

Have you tried pitching a non-high tech story to traditional media outlets lately? Even if you start with an email pitch, most of them still want to see a press release at some stage.

The traditional media just isn't there yet. They're still learning what RSS and blogging are. Witness the success we've had with this non-tech client (http://www.echomemoirs.com/news.html). All of those news hits came from traditional, non-Internet-based activites, which still includes ye olde press release.

RSS will work for journalists AFTER publicists get them interested in a company. Once you get a journo interested, you can't give them too much information. But I maintain that TRADITIONAL press releases are of no use to anyone under any circumstances except publicly traded companies whose news has to be followed by beat journalists and analysts.

Eventually journalists will see those little orange boxes on their own organizations' sites and start listening to you. :>)

Many years ago I had to explain object oriented programming to journalists at major media outlets. More than one told me that I was the only person who'd ever provided them with a plain english explanation. But they still told me that their readers would never be interested in such a techie subject. Of course now all the major software we use involves object oriented programming.

What would you recommend we do when journalists ask us for press releases? Turn them down? Clearly, then, they're still of use.

I don't understand the point of your OOP example. Regular humans and journalists alike couldn't care less about the language their software is developed in.

And you can forget about the little orange buttons. That's way too difficult for the average computer user. Just as they don't know about, say, XML or object-oriented programming, the vast majority of computer users (including journalists) will, happily, never know the word RSS. Because RSS is being implemented in the next generation of apps (Longhorn, Safari, Outlook, etc), they'll probably just understand it as 'subscribing' to a website.

Some of this is just about differences in the way we work. We clearly have different styles.

I did **not** say not to use press releases at all. I said not to use **TRADITIONAL** press releases. I have written many articles on what the format for releases read in email and off a computer screen should be and you can read them in the archives of my newsletter, What's Next Online.

The point about OOP is that it has now been incorporated into commonly used software and tech journos eventually did explain that to their readers. I played an educational role, in conversations and emails, and in fact sheets and examples, not in sending out press releases. So when they did write about OOP, they came to me for background. It's about relationships, not press releases.

When Longhorn incorporates RSS journos will indeed explain to their readers what it is. And, if you've been providing info they need and not just press releases, they'll come to you and Nooked, your client, for the explanations.

Did the publicist's role vanish when e-mail came along? How about fax machines? RSS is a delivery channel -- a great one -- but you can't build a relationship with it, target a message based on a single reporter's interests, or respond to individual questions. I don't care what technology comes along, it's still a tool, and tools come LAST in the strategic communication planning process. GOOD publicists will still have plenty to do.

I'm talking about the average person. Not the average technologist or programmer--the average person.

Does the average person today know what OOP is? Do they care? Absolutely not.

The same goes for RSS. If we build the next generation of RSS-related software correctly, the average media consumer need never hear the term "RSS".

Just as, for example, the average person has no idea what XML is, but it's behind significant chunks of their daily desktop and Internet activities.

I just published an issue of my newsletter with an article entitled "A Totally Non-Techie Explanation of What You Need to Know About RSS"

I'll let you know what kind of opens and clickthroughs I get.

RSS is just an info delivery method. So is email, fax, mail, whatever. It will be adopted over time, some will prefer it, others won't. Don't get so hung up on journos understanding RSS. Most will eventually. The smart practitioners -- assuming they have something relevant to say about their clients -- will find a way to get it in the journo's hands.

The press release is in fact deader than it is alive, as it should be. For the past five years, when an editor asks me for a release, I just tell her "Nah, no release, I'll send you the data in an email. Or whatever you prefer." None has ever slammed a fist and said "I demand a press release."

Way too often, clients think PR means "press release." Way too often, practitioners go along when they shouldn't.

Thanks, but I'm afraid that's hardly applicable. Clearly people who subscribe to a newsletter entitled "What's Next Online" are not average users, are they?

A better approach would be to stop 100 people on the street (not in my neighbourhood, though--it's full of software companies) and ask them what XML is. I'd bet you might get 3 winners from 100.

Artfully said Mason!

Actually Darren, my newsletter readers are a cross-section of agency and corporate marketers who are decidedly non-technical, as I am.

THey know, like the journos you pitch to, that they have to keep up with new technology at least to the degree that they know what a blog is and what RSS is.

None of this applies to average people in the street who have no knowledge of Internet issues. If you are talking to the women's editor or the fashion editor, I can see your point. But when you talk to a business editor, they do keep up. What they want to know, and what I want to know, and what my readers want to know, is how technology affects people directly .... how it helps them do their job better, increase their sales, etc.

WHen a story is pitched in terms of how it affects people, which is how I told editors the OOP story you think was so irrelevant, it gets business coverage. Nobody cares about new technology. They care about how new technology affects people. So I wouldn't expect any editor to write a story about RSS. I'd expect them to write about how RSS helps people, and it may be too early to tell that story as a trend piece, which is what editors eat for breakfast. :>)

None of that happens with **TRADITIONAL** press releases and like everyone is saying, RSS is just another tool.