In these days of ‘thin’ news, social media news, fake news, AI news, PR news and general waste your time news one can see the online news market actually maturing a bit and honing their skills to cover real news.
I do find myself, when wearing my MyPR.co.za hat, becoming slightly jaded as press release submission after press release submission to MyPR fall into the thinly disguised advert category.
Yes, MyPR is based in Nelson Mandela Bay and has been proudly serving PR Professionals for almost 15 years now.
In this new world we all sell something – a product, a fleeting viral moment, ourselves.
Very few sites post news OR even empower journalists to post and promote their news.
Lord Northcliffe summed up just what the news is by saying; “News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”
I have seen on MyPR that the press releases submitted that are ‘newsy’, not a product pitch and well written to a target audience are perennially top of the pops when it comes to the numbers of times being read.
So, I sat with a dilemma: Increase the number of quality news articles AND honour the journalists who do so without charging them to get maximum exposure.
So I sent out the challenge by offering free Featured Press Release publication to any article that fully encapsulate the following guidelines: Journalistic in style, Unique, Topical, Entertaining, Newsy, NOT an ad (or even a sniff of an ad) and to be Published FIRST on MyPR.
So far this week I have deleted two that didn’t meet the criteria and published one that does.
Click here to see the first one published: https://mypr.co.za/parliament-presses-pic-over-metrofibre-deal-and-r1-4-billion-indemnity/
Part of my motivation to give this free service is to attract quality news to balance out the ‘thinly disguised adverts’ – this should increase readership (making the thinly disguised adverts even more valuable), showcase and promote good journalism, increase the page rank and SEO on MyPR and generally be of service to an industry that needs all the hep that it can get.
Win, win, win, win and win!
