Press Releases Are Not A PR Strategy

Press Releases Are Not A PR Strategy

By: Jayse Nelson

This title may be shocking for some of you reading this because for the past four years of college we have been taught, as a Public Relations student, that press releases ARE a PR Strategy. The author of this text, Linda B. VandeVrede, takes a different approach to PR, one that does not focus on using press releases as the main PR strategy.

Throughout the book, VandeVrede shared different communication approaches that have proven to be successful for many companies. She covers everything from hiring a PR professional to writing a blog. The communication approaches she discusses in each chapter are all ethical and, “…do not involve spin, manipulation, or questionable an unethical practices.” She even included the PRSA code of ethics in the Appendix of the book.

What the author means by her title is that press releases should not be used as the official PR strategy. It should be used according to necessity and newsworthiness of the story. Press releases should be apart of PR strategy, but not THE PR strategy. In addition, VandeVrede notes the Webster’s New World Dictionary definition, “A statement or story prepared for release to the news media.” She states that press releases are too often a sales pitch intended for a consumer audience rather than a publication for news media. This is a valuable lesson we all must learn.


VandeVrede concludes her book by discussing the importance of working within an ethical framework. The PRSA code of ethics was updated in 2000 to include examples of unethical behavior. The author suggests that the reader review these examples and the code of ethics. She suggests the golden rule as one of the ethical frameworks that can guide a company, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning

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By: Leslie Koch

Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning by Christians et al., does a great job at comprehensively discussing ethical issues involved with today’s media as well as society. The book not only makes the readers think about their own moral values, but brings up great points about the changing ways of thinking in today’s media.

The book outlines important issues in four separate parts; news media, advertising, public relations and entertainment. In the news media section the authors discuss the effect of corporations on the news, the difficulties of truth telling, the reliability of sources and portrayal of social issues. In advertising the book focuses on issues brought up by commercialization, image portrayal, and general moral issues in the profession of advertising. When discussing public relations ethics, the authors bring up issues involving conflict of interests, social responsibility and the challenges of representing an organization. The entertainment section of the book describes violence as entertainment, the pressure of profit, and censoring issues.

In each section, the book uses actual cases to illustrate the issues and defend the authors’ arguments. In the preface, the authors say that they believe in using case studies to learn, because that is the nature of the media industry. Media and communication is an experience-based and hands-on environment, where learning occurs by doing. Because of this, the authors choose to use real-life examples for the readers to learn vicariously through.

I enjoyed reading the book because of these cases. I found it very beneficial to be able to analyze the arguments by seeing how they were applied (or not applied) in an actual situation. I believe that ethics is a hard subject to teach, because it is based on moral reasoning and the answer is not always the same. However, I thought the book did a great job at working through those challenges and shedding light on sensitive subjects.