Can journalists and PR people ever really be friends? Mainstream metro daily journalists are driven by their editors to produce a certain kind of content. They are not there to promote your product but to provide controversy, humour, human interest or some other parochial factor that aligns with editorial policy.(This differs from the 'op-ed' opinion based columnists who are more like bloggers.)
If you, as a PR person, bombard a business or general news journalist with product-focused media releases, you are going to get the flick. You, and more likely your client, then get upset because your perfectly crafted words and ground-breaking world first announcements have been rejected. Product releases belong with the trades, unless they truly are sensational, ground-breaking world firsts.
It's a better strategy to offer your favourite journalists a real story at any time - even when it doesn't apply directly to your client. And even to offer journalists stories you've identified when they're not related to your clients at all.
The problem is of course that your clients want you to send product focused releases - so send them you must. What I find works for me is to send the release but include in the body of the email a note that talks about how the content of the release could fit in a real story - whether this is because it's relevant to the news of the day or because it could become part of a larger feature story. This is hard work - and you must convince your client of its value. That's a whole other story :).
