On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 01:25 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote: > Bruce Byfield wrote: > > > OOo had a good start about 15 months ago when Robin Miller from the OSTG > > group (Newsforge, Slashdot) gave an IRC seminar in how to write an > > effective news release. Unfortunately, nobody in OOo seems to have taken > > what he said to heart. > > I did. But trying to get a press release or an article through all the > bureocracy is an exercise in frustration. I know of one volunteer who > quit because she worked very hard for days on a press release that would > have made interesting news and her work was promptly shot down.
Yes, now that you remind me, you did. Unfortunately, being PR liasion would be a full-time effort. I think you could do the job, but you're focused on other things, and so far haven't got around to being cloned. Maybe a group working full-time on media contact is what's needed. A regular group that had proven itself to the project might eventually be able to get news out more quickly. If you're thinking of the same case as I am, she wasn't working on a news release, but a story, and her work was pre-empted by another story on the same topic. That was unfortunate, but such things happen sometimes. However, they happen much less frequently if editors know a writer and have learned to trust them from past performance. This is part of what I mean about building a relationship with media people. But, at any rate, a story isn't a news release, although many companies try to blur the distinction and less reputable journalists are only too happy to go along with them. What OOo needs isn't someone to write stories so much as someone to provide the bare bones of stories, either through writing news releases or announcing that they are available for interviews. That means developing a sense of what makes a story, knowing what type of story appeals to different people in the media, and then delivering the facts that can be shaped into a story as quickly as possible. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421.7177 http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
