Use Real Quotes In Online Press Releases!

With online press releases, there is something to be said about using real, genuine quotes in your release. When I first started working in the PR world, I asked the following question on my first day: Why dont we use genuine quotes in an online press release? My mentor looked at me as if my IQ was in the minuses. Although it may be impractical for a relatively low level PR executive to contact a CEO of a multinational corporation to get an actual utterance from the head honcho, it is something I personally believe in. If you are saying that this is what a senior employee is saying about the topic of the press release, then he or she should have said it. I mean, you see it all the time in tabloid newspapers, such as a friend of the celebrity said this or a stunned onlooker said that, when we all know that the journalist has completely invented these people and fabricated their quotes to fit their article. I feel there is a broader point here. If we want more people to read a press release, then we shouldnt be given quotes that anyone with half an ounce of common sense where never spoken aloud. Furthermore, how many times have you seen a copyright or trademark symbol in the quotations of something that someone has meant to have said. I mean, how do actually speak a symbol? And how many times have you seen a quote that is so full formal and full of technical language that when you repeat the words outloud you know that not even Einstein himself would have said it. I know this blog wont stop the practice, but surely Im not alone in making people say what they meant to have said in an online press release.