 we shall discuss today public relations writing. Public relations writing, as the name suggests, is writing primarily meant for consumption of the public, that is, the general people. According to the Webster's dictionary, publicity is information with a news value. Designed to advance the interest of a place, person, cause or institution, usually appearing in public print. To carry out a successful public relations exercise, it is important to know and understand its possibilities and limitations. Basically, it is the process of transferring information of interest to the organization or cause to be publicized into information that will be of interest to the particular segments of the public to which it is directed. Among the public relations writings, we shall now discuss the press release. As you know, a press release is one of the sources of news. Media organizations depend on press releases for a large chunk of their news. As it is not possible for a news organization to send its reporters to cover each and every news event, press releases act as a convenient alternative whereby organizers of events can write down the highlights and send it for publication. Press releases are also a convenient medium through which an organization can make an important announcement. The advantages of a press release is that the facts are placed in writing and dispatched to the media houses. As there is no scope for direct interaction between the media and the party concerned, it can be described as a one-way traffic. Press releases relating to events may be written in the inverted pyramid style of writing. It saves the time of the sub-editor in the news decks from rewriting it in the news format that is in the inverted pyramid style. However, one cannot expect every organizer to write in the inverted pyramid style because we can't expect all organizers to be trained in journalism and all. They might be common people. So mostly you will be finding the press releases coming in the pyramid style. That is they will be writing it as it happened. So the sub-editor or the news person will have to again process it, edit it and put it in the news format that is in the inverted pyramid style of writing. As press releases serve as documentary evidence of the source of the news contained in it. It must be written in official letter heads of the organization concerned and must be signed by the authorized person. This is important as the news organization will have to defend the publication of the news on the basis of the press release. You see since the newspaper is not sending its own reporters to coveted news so it has to depend on the press release for whatever is stated about that event. So if there is any problem after publication of the news then the newspaper will have to defend itself on the basis of the press release and so it is a written legal document. However this does not mean that anything written in a press release will be published. The press release must fall within the journalistic ethics and norms for publication. So what this means is that that whatever is given in a press release will not be just you know automatically published in the newspaper. The editorial decks will go through the merit of the press release and if it is found suitable for publication and if it meets the norms and ethics of journalism then only it will be published. So no any type of slander or no anything libelous will not be published. Significantly the press releases are authorized documentary presentation of happening events that is hard news. Hence the language should be inactive voice which reflect a sense of immediacy. The language should be simple and direct. Technical jargons and uncommon expressions should be avoided. So we should not you see this as you say the news is for the common reader it must be reader friendly. So we should not complicate matters by using very ornamental language or difficult words or some technical jargons which the common reader might find difficult to understand. It must be kept in mind that the press release should attract the sub editor in the news decks to take it as a news item. Long press releases should be avoided and also the press releases should be devoid of flourished literary ornamental languages as we have already said should be avoided. As you know the sub editor is a very busy person. There will be a lot of press releases or other news items which he has to process. So if possible the press release should be to the point and should be short so that it helps the sub editor to go through it and to process the sub press release as a news item. Next we now come to the backgrounder the material that the PR people use as a backgrounder. This is one of the important functions of a public relations team and it provides supporting data and subject material to the media to write stories from different angles. The PR team has to compile comprehensive data under different heads so that the media gets a clear idea. For example a PR team preparing for a company's press conference or a media team's visit has to make elaborate preparation in the form of background material. Starting from a brief history of the company's profile the PR team has to branch out in different directions projecting the progress, product profile, production growth, future plans etc. A trip and lucid presentation of these materials are provided to the media members as press kit to help them in preparing their stories. A professional journalist with a nose for news may find in an innocuous looking data in the background material the lead for an interesting story. So you see sometimes a piece of item or data which someone might overlook might turn out to be a very interesting angle for a story. Presentation of background material should be made in an interesting way with a literary flourish to help the journalist in writing attractive soft stories. Interesting quotes and observations of high-profile dignitaries may be included in the material for use by the media. In preparing background materials the PR team should keep in mind that the materials provided to the media are to be used for preparation for news stories. Hence all efforts should be made to make the material media friendly as far as possible. Highly technical jargons that is terms used in specialized fields like law, medicine, engineering etc. should be avoided as far as possible so that the message is coached in a language which could be understood by the average reader. Finally we will now conclude with the press note. This is also an important accessory of a press conference or press meet. Any individual or organization holding a press conference does so to convey their point of view on a subject for which preparation is made beforehand. The speaker at the press conference usually prepares his speech to be delivered before the media. Copies of the speech are distributed among the media representatives as press note. It helps the media to get a word-by-word account of the speaker's speech which helps to remove any misunderstanding besides the exact words could be used as quotes. It is not possible for a reporter to note down word-by-word all that the speaker says at a press conference. Moreover tape recorder facilities may not be available with all the media representatives. Distribution of press notes before the beginning of the press conference also gives an opportunity to the reporters to go through the speech and prepare them to ask questions on the important points of the subject matter. With this we conclude for today. Thank you.