The Death of the Press Release

(MoneyWatch)  The press release has long been a favorite way for airlines and other companies to announce what's going on. It's always been an easy way to blast information out to the media, but in the world of email and other social communications, it has become way too easy to use and even easier to ignore. I'm calling for the death of the traditional press release.

In the airline world, Yahoo! provides the best way to follow press releases if you aren't on the distribution list yourself. I would say that rarely more than a couple of releases ever catch my eye on a single day, yet there are far more issued. Take a look at Wednesday, January 27, for example.

More than 30 releases showed up that day. A few were focused on earnings announcements, but the rest were mostly very niche-focused. For example, you can take my favorite headline. I can't make this up.

American Airlines and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children Host Annual Amputee Ski Trip Seriously? Ok, so this takes 14 amputee kids in Dallas and sends them to ski in Colorado for the week. I imagine this may get interest in Dallas and there's a slight chance it will get picked up in Colorado as well, but why bother putting a release out? Why not just send targeted emails, tweets, Facebook posts, etc to those who are bound to be interested? It's not a long list, and the personalized communication will likely get better pick up anyway.

Look at United's (UAUA) recent announcement that it would roll out one way awards. The official announcement came out on Feb 1, but those people who cared most already knew about it. It was first leaked on FlyerTalk early on January 28. On January 30, United chimed in with an official confirmation on the site. It took off from there.

There's no question that key media contacts were notified and the word had been plastered all over the travel community. The reality is that news gets out there well before the press release ever hits the wires these days. So why bother? Let's stop. It's not necessary.