Compare this Ontario government news release with this example from the NewfoundlandLabrador government.
The traditional news release evolved from a print format news story. There is still tremendous value in the style, format and content if it is used properly.
The problem comes in situations where, despite drawing most of its communications directors straight out of news rooms, the overwhelming majority of provincial government news release are turgid, boring drek. They may contain some of the most exciting and innovative ideas on the planet but the format in which the information is conveyed seems calculated to put people to sleep.
Now, sometimes news releases are deliberately written and distributed in a way to avoid telling things, but that's a whole other issue. Burying information is not communications; it's grave digging.
The Ontario approach breaks the conventions but it does deliver the information the government wants to convey in a way which people can take it up quickly and easily. Reporters will likely find it easier as the starting point for putting their pieces together since it breaks everything down in tidy bundles. The rest of us will also likely find it easier to scan and, frankly, that's the intention.
With so much information coming in so many formats and through so many channels, people who want to stay informed have become browsers.
They scan.
Here's a heatmap picture [Source: Jakob Neilson's Alertbox] of how people scan web pages of different types.
The red bits show areas of most eye activity. Yellow is less activity and the grey bits are places where people don't look at all.
Some people spend a lot of time looking at these things since it tells us how to present information in a way that people will pick it up.
Take a look at the web page you're looking at right now. Notice that the posts - the things you should be reading are presented in the upper left, that is where all the red activity would typically take place. On the right are things that are considerably less important, not by the reckoning of your humble e-scribbler, but by the results of studies into the reading patterns of people just like you.
Don't worry, by the way. You aren't being monitored, scanned or otherwise probed, at least not by this site.
Since people do learn to look to the right for other useful bits of information. On the google page on the right of the picture, that's where those google ads appear with links off to some other site. People spend a lot of time figuring out what attracts google attention in order to get a site into that red zone on the upper left. Alternately, they just buy space on the upper right.
At Bond Papers, the stuff that the top of the right-hand column gets moved about a bit depending on what needs to be highlighted. The whole idea, though, is to put stuff where you are more likely to look so that you'll be more likely to see it.
The Ontario government news release doesn't really conform to this eye scan approach but it does at least reflect the shifting patterns in how people take in information.
Let's see if this idea catches on. We shouldn't look locally or expect change any time soon, though, since the local market is fairly conservative. The provgov's a good example; the site only recently started posting photographs with releases and it's unimaginable that the provgov or one of its agencies would try youtubing stuff with decent quality video.
Doing more of the same when the environment changes makes it less likely your communication will be successful.
Take, for example, the campaign to promote composting. Boosting the number of people composting successfully would require a shift in popular culture. The most effective way to do that would be through creation of a support network either within a physical community or through online communities and blogs.
Go find the official government composting blog.
Keep looking.
You won't find one.
That's because the project was approached as a typical flogging project. We've got these bins and we need to move them out the door. Therefore, run some advertising. Print some brochures. Find a price point at which the bins will move.
The key metric for success should have been the number of people composting successfully which in turn would reduce the amount of food matter heading for landfills. Now the advertising mentioned the problem and how wonderful things would be if people composted, but nothing created the support system needed to actually have people composting.
The metric for success seems to have been the number of bins moved.
By that record, the project was a success.
Has anyone checked to see how many bins are not just taking up space in the corner of backyards?
Probably not.
But traditional news releases make wonderful fodder for a compost bin when you print them out.
In too many cases, that's about all they are good for.
-tpb/srbp-