[derrida]

The thing to consider about a press release is it's a way that other journalists know every other journalist has gotten the news, and thus, is a way to guarantee that not many people will write about you (journalists are driven by the scoop). If what you have is actually 'news' and not just propaganda, give an exclusive to someone at a major daily. That beats a press release. Don't worry that the story they write hasn't got your contact details, the best journalists are like hackers, they can get any information they want. So the people that call you the day the story has run (and for this you must fit with the journalists schedule and resist talking early) will be a selection of the best and most interested journalists.

[klint]

This works, but as I journalist I'd like to add that we hate being scooped and we hate hearing about news for the first time on a competitors site.

An alternative approach would be to give one publication an exclusive, and then as soon as the story runs send out the copy of a blog post from someone within the company (preferably a founder or the CTO, assuming it's a tech company) to journalists and say "we're going to run this on the company blog in an hour, but feel free to run a story with quotes from it now." That way we have something other than the competitors' story to quote from and we don't feel totally shutout.

[jagermo]

I agree. I normally prefer long blog entries to generic press releases, but I work in a very technical environment and have the time to work on articles. That's why it is so important to know your journalists. If they ask you: "Have you read some of my articles?" you better have an answer.