How to convert a document submitted by a staff member to a traditional press release to an online news story?

The truth is that we, as readers, have come to expect something different from online material. There’s something more personal about reading an online article, even when it’s for work purposes (and maybe we’ve blurred our job and personal life?) We drop our corporate persona just that little bit, or maybe adopt an uneasy halfway role between job title and our leisure self.

The traditional press release involves a suspension of disbelief: The reader politely accepts the corporate angle. The publisher takes what s/he wants from the article (or even just copy and pastes) and disseminates the corporate word that way.

Try reading a press release online. It just doesn’t work. The reader isn’t so polite (perhaps that’s the essential difference between on and offline reading?) The tone of press releases online is laughable.

When we publish a story online we can’t spin the same line. We have to make it focused, worthy of discussion and more plain truthful than the traditional press release.

Which can often mean the author of the original document is left wondering why certain aspects are left out.