Avionics News October 2013 - 58

WORKING WITH AVIATION MEDIA
Continued from page 56

By nature, editors are detailoriented, and you may be surprised to
learn they may look at every aspect
of your news release. First, Haines
reminded news release distributors to
“use the BCC feature of your email
program and mask the individual
recipients of the news release. I’ve
received dozens of releases with the
company’s media list in full view.”
When you think about it, your
company’s media list should be a
guarded database. Done right and
updated regularly, your media list is

proprietary. You have invested time
and resources, secured hard-to-get
emails of editors and here you go
sharing it with the world.
After answering my questions,
AIN’s Moll later emailed me an
example of a news release with the
company’s distribution list in full
view – also a pet peeve of his, and
noted, “Here’s a prime example of
a release that needs BCC-ing. On
the other hand, I guess it’s generous
of her to share her email list of the
world’s aviation press with anyone
else who might need one.”
Haines preferred receiving the
release in the body of an email, but

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the others are OK with attachments.
If you attach the news release
as a document as part of your
distribution plan, consider the name
of the file. It frequently happens
that the wrong version of the file
gets sent, including a version with
“track changes” still turned on
with recommended changes in full
view. Do you really want to share
what phrases you had to reword, or
which sentences were deleted? Do
you really want the aviation media
to see the changes made to your
final release? It’s embarrassing.
I’ve also received dozens of
news releases marked with their
version numbers. When the file
is tagged with a version number,
you are broadcasting that it took
several attempts to get the story
straight. You don’t want to portray
the image of your staff editing and
changing words and coming up with
just the right phrase, or your legal
department making changes. This
thinking also applies to the other
dozens of news releases I’ve gotten
labeled as “final.” By labeling a
news release “final,” you are sending
the message, “Here’s our story, and
we’re sticking to it.”
One final word on computer docs
and files: Why are you saving all
those versions on your computer
anyway? Having a dozen versions
of the same news release on your
computer is just begging for an
accident to happen with the wrong
version sent. Delete them. It will be
a rare event for someone to question,
“Now what was the difference
between version 4 and 5?”
Continued on page 60

58

avionics news

•

october

2013
http://www.navaidsltd.net
Avionics News October 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News October 2013
