Here’s some positive financial data: This Memorial Day weekend, gas prices are expected to be the cheapest in years. (Gee, can’t imagine why this Memorial Day weekend is different from the last four, eh?) Either way, it’s welcome news for the over 45 million Americans who’ll be driving at least 50 miles.
But not just motorists will be licking their chops.
Most of the time in PR, people like me are paid to maximize media attention. If you have something newsworthy to share, it’s our job to figure out the best PR pitch. (And if you have nothing to share, heck, we’ll manufacture something.) Either way, the stronger your source material — and the more creative your PR team — the more publicity you usually get.
We normally disseminate press releases on Monday or Tuesday morning. (I’m just guessing, but lots of the PR experts who release stuff on a Tuesday would’ve probably preferred to do so on a Monday, but they’re hoping Tuesday’s competition will be less fierce. So it’s more a “path of least resistance” thing than a timing thing.) Because of how journalists are assigned stories, earlier in the week is way better than later.
Only 2% of journalists wanna read your press release on a Thursday or a Friday. But on Monday, it’s 20%.
Which means, of course, that Friday is the absolute worst day for PR pitches!
Or the best day. Let me explain.
Sometimes it’s because of a court order and/or legal settlement. Other times, it’s something that needs to be filed with a regulatory board. For the government, it’s often linked to an unpopular announcement or sudden policy reversal.
If you’ve gotta dump bad news, Friday is perfect!
And the Friday before a holiday weekend? Especially one where over 45 million Americans will take to the roads, doing something other than sitting in front of their TVs and obsessively watching the news?
Oh, baby!
The “Holiday Weekend News Dump Strategy” has fans in both parties. It wasn’t coincidental that President George H.W. Bush pardoned Robert McFarlane and Cap Weinberger on December 24, and it wasn’t happenstance that President Biden (or whoever was controlling the autopen) pardoned Hunter Biden over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.
Other than timing, the other telltale sign that a press release and/or media announcement was a deliberate “bad news dump” is the use of boring language.
After publicists pitch a story, we can’t control what a journalist does with it. It’s not like an advertisement, where every word was bought and paid for. So to “encourage” the journalist to follow a certain spin, we try to use juicy quotes and exciting, clever language. If the journalist was so impressed that they basically copied-and-pasted your entire press release in their story, you don’t get angry or accuse ‘em of plagiarism — you do your “happy dance” and high-five your client because that’s exactly what you were shooting for!
Here's one of the dirty little secrets I’ve learned in PR: Inside every journalist is a Hemingway wannabe, and if you can entertain ‘em with your wordplay, you’ll build relationships pretty quickly.
So when we wanna limit a story’s PR legs, we’re certainly not going to send the media a witty quote that would enhance their story. Instead, we’re gonna give ‘em boring, repetitive garbage that puts their audience to sleep.
Optimal Positioning: Battling the special interests, Rep. Joe Blow refused to back down in his unrelenting one-man crusade against government waste. Posing with an antique sword that was once used during the American Revolution, Rep. Blow vowed to “slice and dice the bloated, soul-sucking monstrosity” that is the federal budget, and will vote no on Bill XXXX.
Crappy Positioning: Citing the ongoing need to reduce unnecessary redundancies within a limited number of budgetary line items, Rep. Joe Blow will vote no on Bill XXXX. “Based on the overwhelming feedback of my constituents, in person and online, plus hundreds of phone calls and handwritten letters, we have committed ourselves to reducing organizational replication by limiting future federal expenditures,” Rep. Blow said.
Same basic story, but if you sent the first one out on a Monday morning, that congressman would land a bunch of interviews: CNN, Fox News, and the rest. (They’d even encourage him to bring that cool-looking sword into the studio with him!)
Not so with the second.
This strategy worked best pre-social media. Now, you also need to coordinate your news dumps during times when Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok have fewer users. Twenty years ago, you didn’t have to worry about your story going viral on social media; today, you absolutely do. (Lots of times, social media is more dangerous than traditional media.) And for social media, the quietest day isn’t Friday — it’s Sunday.
So if you’re primarily concerned with mainstream media, you’d kill a story by dumping it on a Friday evening. If you’re more afraid of the social media pushback, you’d dump it on a Sunday evening.
That brings us to today — Friday, May 23, 2025. And wouldn’t you know it?
It’s the Memorial Day weekend!
Enjoy yourselves. Grill some burgers, drink some beer, and keep the legacies of our fallen heroes alive by sharing their stories. For many of us, the Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kickoff of summer fun.
But for others, now’s the perfect time to pull the wool over the country’s eyes.
So, while you’re having a great time, take a quick peek at the news on Friday evening and Sunday evening. Just a few minutes ought to do it.
You might be surprised by what you find.
