Category: Media & Journalism

The press release 100 years old

Via the India PR Blog I notice that the press release supposedly turned 100-years-old on October 28.

“On October 28, 1906, at least 50 people lost their lives when a three-car train of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s newly equipped electric service jumped a trestle at Atlantic City, NJ, and plunged into the Thoroughfare creek. 

That afternoon, Ivy Lee, who some consider to be the father of modern PR, created the first press release. The Pennsylvania Railroad was one of his clients. Following the accident, Lee not only convinced the railroad to distribute a public statement, he also convinced them to provide a special train to get reporters to the scene of the accident.”

About time then that this communications channel evolved a bit. The PR agency SHIFT Communications initiated a discussion around the development of a “social media press release” this summer. The thought was that the press release should be re-designed to fit the new social media/web 2.0 environment. I am sure we will continue to see interesting developments regarding press releases and other PR tactics. For PR practitioners, these are exiting times.

An abundance of new Swedish media

The dust has barely settled after yesterday’s launch of the new free daily Punkt SE, when yet another newspaper sees the light of day – Täby Danderyd Tidning, a bi-weekly local paper for the two cities Täby and Danderyd north of Stockholm. But this is not part of the current free daily craze that has hit the Nordic countries, no T&D; is a subscribed morning paper. While I admit that this part of greater Stockholm is in what could be considered “media shadow”, I admire their guts. The competition is stiff with three free dailies currently being handed out across the region and one (Mitt i Täby) being distributed directly to the local households. T&D; aims to be the leading local paper in the region within five years, and who knows, stranger things have happened.

täby danderyd tidning

mitt i täby

And while we are on the subject of new media investments, Aftonbladet today revealed the name for its new tv channel – TV7. Starting next Monday they threaten us with “Aftonbladet in a tv format”.

What is surprising is that Aftonbladet two days in a row have launched new media projects that they don’t own the domain names for. Punkt.se is owned by Spray and TV7.se has been owned by a company called Esias Consulting KB since 2001 (contact name Svante Tegnér, the über-brat of Stockholm city). Esias Consulting KB lost a legal dispute for the domain sportnytt.se to SVT in 2003, but that was an old brand. TV7 is brand new and such a dispute may not be as easy to win for Aftonbladet.

Oil price still a myth

Today’s headlines are all about the new record levels for the oil price. But is it a record? No, not in inflation adjusted terms, see chart below (full size chart here). Oil prices were much higher in December 1979.

Inflationdata.com writes:

“The real peak occurred back in 1980. Back then the monthly average price peaked at $38 per barrel (although the intraday prices spiked much higher).

The common price quoted is for the all time high of Oil prices is the price that the highest barrel ever sold for. That price doesn’t really have any effect on the price consumers paid. What really matters is the average price the refineries had to pay for the whole month.”

– There is no reason to assume there will be a decrease [in the oil price], Ulf Svahn, Managing Director of Svenska Petroleuminstitutet, told Dagens Industri this morning.

Sure, that’s what you would expect a spokesperson from the oil industry to say, wouldn’t you?

Footnote: I have written about this before.