The Soft Issue
August 2017
Story from Within
THE PRESS RELEASE OF SORRY
The number one
tool for external
communications for
most organisations
is press release.
Abass Abass dissects
the usage of press
release by university
student union bodies
By: Abass Abass
T
o issue a press release is to attempt to quell
a seething fire. As one tries to douse the fire
it quenches here and takes off there. In trying
to solve a problem another problem then
emerges: a case of fighting a hundred duck-size horses.
The last few months have been revealing for the
University of Ilorin and its students. Scandals here and
there, controversy this controversy that. The media
are really out to eat this school as one would to well-
cooked meal. In spite of the school’s effort to claw its
way out of trouble, its students, through the students’
union and departmental associations, continue to draw
it back.
There were at least three big issues on campus
recently. During these periods, the students’ union
were furiously writing press releases. At the time of
writing their statements, the issues they were writing
to address were just one horse-sized duck. When the
press releases landed on WhatsApp it degenerated:
the horse-sized duck became a hundred duck-sized
horses. A problem they could have addressed with just
one bullet turned into one twenty bullets cannot kill.
Shoot bird, the mother fly.
Press release is a weapon used to combat specific
problem. These may range from managing the spread
of rumours to setting records straight, although it is
used to address issues that are not that problematic.
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But only a few of these press releases actually
connect and take flight. Oftentimes, those press
releases hardly make it beyond the email inboxes
or desks of journali sts. And when it does make it
out it becomes a problem itself.
A lot can go wrong with a press release. In the
case of the Students’ Union and Association
of Mass Communication Students (AMCOS)
everything went wrong. All the things that went
wrong happened at the organisation and writing
level: the union and AMCOS are not issuing these
statements because they ought to. They write
these press releases because they feel to be taken
seriously as an organisation they have to release
press statements often. It is this feeling that drives
them to churn out junk.
In writing statements, it can either have a tone
or be tone-deaf. The union’s and AMCOS’s press
releases dated March 17th and 22nd, 2017 cannot
be described as tone-deaf: they knew what they
wanted to say, but it did not come out well. While
the SU’s statement can be said to be subdued, as
if the writer were under duress to write it, AMCOS’s
statement was contrite in a puerile way. Both
statements were addressing sensitive issues. But
the union’s issue was weightier, since their earlier
press releases, which were ill-thought, had blown
up on their faces.
the
LENS