Press Releases about Politics, Legal Matters and Other Sensitive Issues
As the political season heats up, I have consulted with PRWeb's NewsCrafters and offer up:
10 Tips for Exercising Your Right to Free Speech via a Press Release
About Politics, Legal Matters and Other Sensitive Issues
1. Review your press release sentence by sentence, including the headline and summary, to ensure all statements about someone else’s wrongdoing and derogatory material about someone else are completely accurate, non-libelous and attributed to the primary source. You are responsible for the accuracy of your content on PRWeb. Attribution includes citing a court case number (or link to primary source) before naming someone in connection with an indictment, conviction, criminal investigation or criminal charge such as fraud or corruption, etc. Remember, a charge is an allegation, not a conviction. Accusing or implying that someone has committed a crime is not fair criticism in our democracy if the person has not been found guilty in a court of law, and inaccurately implying commission of a crime is not protected free speech.
2. Include an explicit explanation of why you have authority to release information (facts, data, etc.) on behalf of or about another organization or person or why you are an expert with credentials that make your opinion on these matters newsworthy. Personal opinions and attacks, anonymous rumors and speculation are not newsworthy and not appropriate for distribution via a press release. PRWeb does not accept press releases from anonymous sources and has a policy of rejecting press releases whose primary or only intent is to exact harm on another person or organization.
3. Use the third person and active voice. Refer to yourself by name on first reference rather than “I” or “we.” On second reference, use he, she, it or they. Refer to your audience and readers as voters, the public, viewers, citizens, the jury, etc., rather than “you.” Use active voice rather than passive voice for attribution. Example: “Campaign XYZ announced the receipt of a donation from ABC” is better than “A donation from ABC was received” -- assuming, of course, that you have the authority to release information on behalf of Campaign XYZ. (See Tip No. 2 above.)
4. Do explicitly state your expert status or authority to “report” political shenanigans or criminal behavior or to link to a Web site that is not your own. PRWeb generally does not approve press releases linking to Web resources that are not under your control. Nor can you use PRWeb to announce or discuss criminal conduct unless you are a member of the criminal justice system and/or have a case number. (See Tip No. 6.)
5. Avoid specific allegations of wrongdoing by others in your press release or the use of legal terms such as “evidence” and “complaint” in a general sense. It is better to summarize and generalize in a press release and leave specific charges and accusations to copy on your Web site or blog. For instance, your press release can say you and your organization are critical of certain actions or statements by political foes and that a full statement about the criticism or commentary is available elsewhere.
6. Please don’t refer to specific criminal charges or other types of legal claims unless you have the case number or unless you are a member of the criminal justice system. This guideline is put in place to ensure that these matters are accurately described and drawn from legal documents.
7. Don’t say a “complaint was filed” unless it is a legal or administrative complaint with an organization or entity with an indexing system (case numbers). Letters of complaint, letters to the editor and the like generally do not rise to the level of newsworthiness. If the court or administrative agency is not widely known, a brief explanation about the entity's jurisdiction and its capacity for investigations and remedies would be appreciated.
8. Do explicitly attribute to a primary source “facts” about someone other than yourself or your organization, especially those that are derogatory, imply commission of a crime, etc. Note that the passive “It was reported that …” is not primary or explicit attribution.
9. Keep it short and simple. Don’t go on about several different points in a press release. Focus on one or two newsworthy points and your expert status. Then direct your reader to a Web site where all the gory details are published.
10. Consider paying for a professional writing service from a PRWeb NewsCrafters editor if you are an individual, blogger or small organization without professional training in press release or news writing. Before an editor can be assigned to a revision, however, please supply all missing information (primary source attribution, case numbers, expert standing, news angle, etc.) and/or remove all inappropriate content.
Recent Comments