A recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream shows up this week, saying that “only 49% of today’s professional communicators say they think press releases are ‘as useful as ever.’ ” About a third say that the news release is holding on largely due to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s old school disclosure rules for public companies.

“Press” releases have been declared dead on other occasions. Mary Schmidt did so in September in Lipsticking. Shel Holtz weighed in 3+ years ago with a reasonable call for evolution (…is Dead. Long Live the …). “Press releases generally don’t create either relevance or trust. In the Darwinism of this crowded new media environment, they don’t survive,” declared Josh in Span Society during the post-election crisis in Iran.  Mark Naples of iMedia Connection posted recently on “6 Facts Every Marketer Must Know,” in which he heaps another shovel of dirt on the release based on polls of people who cover marketing for large media outlets. 

For a guy who started out his PR career tryi