ON PRESS RELEASES
in my past life, i wrote press releases for a government agency and an IT company. i also wrote semi-technical and popular articles on scientific studies for our internal publication and for the mass media.
i remember how my colleagues ranted about how reporters "plagiarized" or didn't even acknowledge the source (i.e. the writer) in their articles, how this columnist or that columnist gets paid for using our articles.
on the other hand, there were times that we get equally frustrated that mass media i.e. print media do not even use our press releases/articles that we consider our "labor of love".
now that i am on the other side of the fence, i could totally understand why.
however, it's hard sometimes to balance things since i've been in both worlds.
as i've explained to styar one time, we use press releases as backgrounds for our articles since we don't have enough time to scrounge for more info (try to write kilometric articles in 30 minutes just to beat the deadline!). some reporters use the whole press release (and i have to admit i do that) since that is our only source of information, especially if the institution is really hard to penetrate (hello central bank!).
i told styar reporters commit a "crime" if they used the press release as is and nilagyan lang nila ng pangalan nila yung article, passing it off as their own. the "legal" general practice is if the newspaper is going to use the press release verbatim, no byline would accompany the article.
but it's common practice for newspapers not to use the name of the press release writer and cite the instutution where the press release came from instead like "According to a statement from Malacanang..." not "According to ______ (name of writer indicated at the bottom or top of the press release)..."
dati kasi di ko naiintindihan yun. blame it on my ego that sought acknowledgement for my hard work. pero masakit ang katotohanan that PR writers don't get their own bylines, unless the writer sends his/her article as a contributor in a publication that accepts these (i.e. MARID agricultural digest).
minsan naman nasasayang ang press releases pag di ginagamit ng reporters o ng dyaryo kasi 1) pangit ang pagkakasulat so masakit sa ulo intindihin what the writer was trying to say or 2) walang significant na laman puro motherhood statements or flowery praises. sayang ang espasyo ng dyaryo.
sayang naman yung effort. i feel for those writers kasi i've been one of them for almost 3 years. kaso talagang masaklap eh...ganun ang buhay ng PR writer.
kaya nga mahirap maging PR officer: inaapi ka na nga ng mga salbahe/mapang-abusong reporters, wala ka pang recognition as a writer.
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there was this time when i was still with styar and barefoot tennis in that institution, a radio reporter went barging in our office and wanted to interview me. i declined and i told the reporter that i was not the source of the information and i was just a writer who based the article on a scientific paper, ergo, i was not a reliable source. it is best that he should've gone to the proponent of the study because he/she is the primary source and i was just the medium.
he was persistent but still i was adamant. he got pissed off with me.
my point was, he should do his job and not resort to short cuts that could be disastrous in the end. what if may tanong sya di ko masagot ng maayos dahil hindi nga ako ang primary source at napilitan akong mag-explain kahit wala akong nalalaman talaga? oh di ba ampangit. magagalit pa yung mismong source, di ba?
i gave him the contact details of the primary source and told him he could use the article but he should recognize where he got that.
ewan ko kung nag-follow up sya dun sa primary source.
