Thinking about Press Releases

From AICbackground

The best advice we can give you is to have fun with your Press Release. The best Press Releases involve creative ideas and a healthy dose of theatre. BE your character and don't be shy about laying on a little extra style.

Press Releases are used when a team wishes to make an announcement that will be public to the entire game. The game mentor will include the news of an approved Press Release in an In the News update.

Press Releases should take a strong point-of-view. A Press Release is a public statement that should reflect your country or character’s worldview…it isn’t a newscast where you need to be “balanced” and give all “sides.” A Press Release is where you let the world know how things really are, and is also where you can “correct” the misguided people who see things differently than you do ;-) The NSAs are most likely to send back Press Releases that lack a strong voice.

Please also keep in mind that Press Releases can be used to give others only the parts of the story you want them to hear. To put it another way, you may choose whether what you put in a Press Release is the entire truth, only the portions of the truth that you want others to know, or is completely false or misleading. Of course, you don’t want to endanger your credibility casually, but the world of diplomacy is often built on subtle manipulations of the truth and on “spin.”

Press Releases should contain fictionalized quotations from leaders—this means that if you’re portraying President Mubarak, you can (and should) put words in his mouth. These words won't likely be things you know that the leader you're portraying has said, but we do ask that you try to make these quotes things you feel that your leader could say. Press Releases should be written in the form in which an article would appear in a newspaper or in an official governmental statement.

Please consider whether any Press Release you contemplate sending will help the simulation progress and relates to matters that are currently being discussed or resolved in the game situation, or are at least plausibly within the domain of what might be discussed. If the NSAs don’t see such a connection, you’re likely to get your Press Release sent back to you.

== An Illustration of a Good Press Release ==

A Vocal Critic of the Sharon Regime by Shimon Peres/Israel Opposition

TEL AVIV- Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres said yesterday that he believes that Prime Minister Sharon is doing things that make no sense when he kills the people that are willing to work with him to make peace, for instance the recently assassinated Islamic Jihad leader Aziz Mahamoud al-Shami. Peres stated, "Recently, [ al-Shami] offered a ‘hudna' (truce) for thirty years…therefore his murder did not serve any positive aim. It was an act of folly."

Mr. Peres strongly believes that Sharon and the men close to him are being idiots by creating more violence in reaction to violence.

Mr. Peres says further that he "holds firmly to the Israeli fact that security is the top priority for the country."

He also says that, "In the short run, this action endangers our personal security; in the long run it represents and even greater danger to our national security."

Mr. Peres is convinced that the martyr the Palestinians have made of al-Shami will urge them to greater attempts to overthrow the Israeli government. "There is no stronger weapon for a fighting organization than a martyr," he said vehemently when asked about his opinion of the murder of al-Shami.

"Al-Shami was practically born to fulfill the role of a sainted martyr: a religious personality, a militant who spent years in prison, a leader who continued his fight after miraculously surviving an earlier assassination attempt, a hero cowardly murdered from the air while leaving the mosque after prayer." Peres implied that no one could have created a better character to be this special martyr the people will fight for.

Peres thinks that the Palestinians will be more willing to follow Hamas and Islamic Jihad because of this martyr. In his opinion the martyr "they have made al-Shami is sky-rocketing the popularity of such organizations as Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their capability to carry out attacks."

Mr. Peres finished the interview on a note of admonition. "This insane and self-defeating course of so-called preventative killings has to stop! We are merely producing more suicide bombers and martyrs. We must get back to the negotiating table."