Why press releases about projects fail

The scientific community is no stranger to press releases, at least at their formal level. Scientific projects are often accompanied by clauses referring to a press release at their opening and closing, but when written as a formality, they have - at best - no impact, and at worst they drive the press away from the subject altogether.

Press releases are often written in a thick and unintelligible way, in the name of European rules or imposed by project funders.

The result is that that press release is published as an advertisement, i.e. in paid space, or is picked up by too few publications.

Here are the most common mistakes in project press releases:

• They are too bureaucratic - multiple approvals delay interesting information, and listing numerous procedures in the text of releases only hides the real message.
• They are written "upside down" - the most uninteresting information (details) are placed at the beginning of the release and the most interesting at the end
• Gaps or missing information - the press release should be written on the basis of what the journalist wants to know
• Specialised jargon - such as "EU Employability Support Project" instead of "EU plans to create jobs!"

Institutional requirements, even for the most bureaucratic research projects, should not affect the message of the press release.

The first rule of a successful press release is to be about an interesting topic, at least from the journalist's point of view. And what is interesting depends on one factor: the audience.

What does interesting mean? I've written about it on another occasion: How to determine whether a new science finding is "interesting".

If you need support to promote a research project, feel free to contact me.

Photo by Jodie Walton on Unsplash

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