Zoom into Pod Universal, the first PR podcast blog in India by K Srinivasan of Prime Point Foundation and the man behind the some of the top online PR groups. In addition to PR, the blog will cover topics including health, career, management, current affairs, sports, and culture.

I like a recent post in which Srinivasan discussed with KT Jagannathan of The Hindu on why corporate press releases are increasingly being rejected by the media, what are the deficiencies, and how we can write good and effective press releases.

The discussion raised certain interesting issues like -

1. Credibility of the press release reaching a newspaper’s office – Is it on a company letterhead? Is it signed – none of them are signed nowadays? Who will take accountability of what is written there in the press release? Companies don’t inform the media when they have appointed a PR agency, which they should.

2. Duplication of information – Sending press releases from multiple locations – media is aware of this practice. Many ignore press releases because they feel that their offices in other cities must be receiving the same news and will take care of them.

3. Press releases are increasingly containing advertorial material, and not real news.

4. MNCs are more closed than Indian companies when sharing information to the media. I feel that MNCs can do much better PR if their corporate communications departments speed up the way they approve anything, starting from a press release draft, or sending out a single para to a journalist.

5. PR should be knowledge-based, not act like courier agencies – only then the industry can gain respect.

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