By some accounts, it was Ivy Lee (1877-1934) who was the first real public relations practitioner, and it was he who issued the very first “press release” in 1906, the same year of the great San Francisco earthquake. At that time, Lee was on the East Coast dealing with another disaster as the Pennsylvania Railroad, his PR client, had a serious railway accident. It was Lee who persuaded railroad execs to issue a statement to journalists to preempt any inaccurate speculation from spreading and to also control the news in a manner that would minimize damage to his client’s reputation.

In addition to issuing a press release, Lee wisely invited news reporters get a first-hand look at the accident scene, taking special measures to transport the journalists to the scene and nurture open communications with them.

Now a century later, the press release — or as I prefer to call it, the “news release” — continues to do the same yeoman job that Lee intended. However, this brief 2-to-3 page document has taken on a much broader and critical role over the years…and it is this evolution I plan to discuss beginning with this blog and others to follow.

Tags: corporate communications, news release, press release

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Big-M Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.