HookJab points to an interesting example of where three different university PR departments have produced news releases on the same story.
They each have a different angle on what’s essentially the same story. It’s interesting to compare the effectiveness of the different approaches.
What would also be interesting to know would be the process that led to each version being released. I have a hunch that the University of Manchester version was hacked around by the academics (or at least not by the PR people) to push what they thought were the interesting parts.
One lesson from this is that for a news release to be effective, there needs to be an interesting story on offer and it needs to be the first thing that a recipient of the release reads.
It’s up to the PR people to work out what the story angle is, and to stick to their guns when getting the release approved to ensure the news shines through.