Press releases

That doesn’t mean what you think it means

by Matthew Stibbe on October 27, 2011

Back in 2006, I ran a post titled The worst press release ever. It made fun of all the words that people use in press release, like ‘quantum leap’ and ‘holistic’, when they don’t actually know what they mean. I was thinking of that when I read this on Callan Bentley’s blog. (Hat tip: Communicating [...]

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EA Frankenquotes

by Matthew Stibbe on May 13, 2010

EA used to be a cool company. They published my first game, Imperium and we worked with them on a bunch of games at IG. Everyone I met there was whip-smart and passionate about making great games. Now they are just another big dumb corporation that puts out press releases with frankenquotes like this: “This [...]

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Significant, substantial, meaningful: words to avoid

by Matthew Stibbe on March 11, 2010

Tim Phillips’s analysis of press releases on Factiva shows a worrying trend. The number of press releases that contain the words ‘significant’, ‘substantial’, ‘meaningful’ and ‘unique’ in the same text has nearly trebled in the last seven years. Something should be done. I don’t really understand how writers get away with this. Journalists automatically discount [...]

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62 ways to improve your press releases

by Matthew Stibbe on August 7, 2007

There are many voices calling for the death of the press release (e.g. Die Press Release Die or Amy Gahran who wants to put them out of their misery). What is needed is not execution but reform. Here are my tips and suggestions for doing it: Preparation Have something interesting to say. A press release [...]

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