Valley PR Blog

Rob the coffee shop

By Dan Wool on February 12th, 2007 In Writing

Banned Words List #005: “For Immediate Release,” “today announced”

The film Pulp Fiction opens with a couple robbing a coffee shop; then, it cuts to the opening credits. There’s a great lesson there for PR writing as well. Dispense with the formalities. Get to the guts. Rob the coffee shop.

Why does common PR practice continue to dictate that for any announcement you must have “For Immediate Release” above the headline and must lead with some variation of “Company today announced…”?

If you release an announcement with today’s date in the dateline, it is by definition immediate and announced today. Both phrases are self-evident and unnecessary.

I recently read that PR pros have five seconds or less to grab a reporter’s attention. Talk about immediate! Word choice is critical. You literally need to give reasons – word by word – to keep a reporter reading your release.

You’d have a hard time convincing me that “today announced” is slotted-in for anything but tradition. The phrase is an easy way to clutter what might otherwise be an intriguing, direct, informative news lead. It’s corporate-speak. Fight the urge to use it.

The alternative? Write selflessly. Write like a reporter not a salesperson.

Here’s a tale of two leads:

1. “A new line of products may provide the elusive cure for cancer.”
2. “Widget Company today announced a new line of products designed to cure cancer.”

The first lead entices you to keep reading; by contrast, the second lead gives what should be an interesting topic corporate ownership.

You might claim that as PR pros, this should be the point. I disagree. A reporter’s job is to report facts, not promote your sales and marketing objectives. Hook them first with the news; who’s responsible will become apparent and properly attributed. You can get into your client’s role at natural spots later in the release.

“For Immediate Release” is another tradition-dictated press release phrase whose time has passed. It came from the typewriter and snail mail days. Back then (you know, 1988), it was unclear which date a release might arrive in the mail. National news sent from Phoenix to New York City might take a few days; inside Phoenix though, it might only take a day. “For Immediate Release” or its cousin “Embargo Until [date]” provided some guidance to the news’ true immediacy.

With email, the use of “For Immediate Release” no longer makes sense.

First, what’s more immediate than an email literally sent at light speed?

Second, as an example, the style weenies at the paid newswires don’t use it, why should you?

Third, let’s say you do use the phrase for old time’s sake. You paste your release text into an email and click send. If the reporter has the preview pane on, your text will show up in preview as “For Immediate Release” and maybe a bit of your headline. Without a preview pane, there are extra words and spaces to scroll through to get to the news content. Not so immediate.

Both “For Immediate Release” and “today announced” keep you from immediately grabbing a reporter’s attention. Do the opposite. Rob the coffee shop.

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