Great mysteries of PR

I love that we're all commenting on this. I dropped the "For Immediate Release" long ago, didn't serve a purpose, especially since I use a dateline. FIR is clunky and redundant, and maybe a little self-important.

As for the embargo--Sort of reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean, when Keira Knightly invokes "parlay"--it impresses the pirates, but ultimately doesn't get her anywhere. Like the parlay (or, parlez! for frenchies), an embargo is one of those revered codes that is actually quite pointless because it's not always respected. That's because journalists are supposed to go after the scoop, or the exclusive, and their reporting is supposed to be timely--so if the info is out there, of course it's in their interest to write. And especially in arts journalism, a threatened form, many writers are fighting to stay relevant.

I'm happy to feed trusted journalists bits of information and ask that they sit on it for a bit, but I never let anything out (on paper or in conversation) that I wouldn't be 100% comfortable seeing in the paper the next day. The other thing to keep in mind though, is that unless you're working with a major breaking story, all but the most important journalists rarely have the flexibility to turn on a dime--it will take at least a couple days to get the column inches they need to place a story.

I'm also in the # # # camp. I was just thinking about these press release style rules this week. For example, back in the day, we were taught to use double-spaced lines for the press release content. This used to be so journalists could easily make notes in between the lines on the release?? But if people are mostly reading them online, is this still necessary? I've noticed a lot of folks are sending out single-spaced releases nowadays. Renegades.

I am indeed with you. Henceforth, no F.I.R.!

On a related note, I'm curious to know how you (and your readers) feel about the embargo. Some say it's dead. But when timing is important, it feels as if it can still be useful. Is anyone using it anymore? Or have you tried to embargo a story that was then broken by a blog or other online news source?

I think out of all my history of writing press releases, there was only one time I included a date, and that was only for an event. I guess then it's relevant if you want a reporter to write about it the day of the event. But I'd still worry if someone lost your press release and couldn't write about the event then (now I'm just overly speculating).

I don't even us -30- ... good old ###.

"For Immediate Release" is just a traditional thing that hangs on - kind of like "R.S.V.P." How many of us routinely drop French into our conversation any more (a la Morticia Adams)?

I close all my press releases with ###.

I have no idea why. I think it's from the days when newspapers were laid out with moveable type.

I always thought the point of "For Immediate Release" was to make it distinct from releases that are embargoed until a certain date.

Which isn't to say that it remains relevant. I suspect that (1.) editors will presume there's no embargo unless told otherwise, and (2.) unless the PR person has access to enough juicy information that blacklisting as punishment for breaking an embargo would be meaningful, it's pretty silly to expect embargoes to be respected anyway.

For REALLY weird press release customs, consider the convention of ending the release with "-30-". Whah?