Unintended press release disclosures

Last year the British government and a number of large companies launched an IT security website called Get Safe Online. It’s a useful site and well-written.

Prior to the launch news media were sent a press release by email. It was in Microsoft Word format and it had been edited prior to release (as they all are, of course). The problem was that what was deleted was still visible if you switched on the change control features in Word.

Among the revelations was the alleged cost of becoming a sponsor. In itself, I don’t think the amount was very controversial but it became so in a small way because it had been deleted. There were a few disparaging news pieces about this in some media.

In the event the site was good and a lot of things that people were expecting to complain about didn’t happen (the site covered Macs and Linux, was fully standards-compliant and contained lots of useful, accurate information). I was at the press conference and it was interesting to hear the questions that journalists asked.

Anyhow, the US National Security Agency (no less) has produced a guide to ‘redacting’ Microsoft Word documents to avoid this happening. Spies. PR people. Same thing, old boy.

Related posts:

1. Press release Frankenquotes
2. What’s the best way to follow up an email press release?
3. Write press release headlines that make sense
4. The curious non-death of the press release
5. How to write an efficient email press release