Rules: the Press Office

Your opportunity to communicate with your adoring public.
Post Reply
User avatar
Marty
Posts: 221
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:10 am
XP: 18
Trait(s): Technical Mastery
Discord username: Martinulus#9514

Rules: the Press Office

Post by Marty »

The Press Office

This round, we'll be returning to an older version of the rules on Press Releases.

Now hold on, I hear you say - what happened to press cycles? We're still having them, but in a new form. The basis of the mechanics will be a new version of the old (and sadly infamous) Press Office system. The reason for this is that we believe we've finally seen the limitations of the Press Cycles system as it operated. Press Cycles focus the attention of the game to such an extent that they've essentially become the old Press Office, but then plumped into a single thread on a single issue, with parties each vying to outrespond the other. The problem with this is that once a party is banking on a Press Cycle, everyone will - and since the A-team only brings them the goods of momentum and XP at the end, there's no way for the A-team to basically say "hold on - we've heard this all before" or even "why are you focusing at all upon this?" before it's too late. We believe that the old PR system, in which PRs were marked individually by the A-team, did offer this opportunity for the A-team to essentially declare that an argument had become repetitive and a debate had died down, thus allowing players to move on to other matters quicker.

Basic mechanics of the Press Office
So, how does this thing work? Well, the Press Office forum contains all your interactions with the press from the throwaway comments we've come to know and love in the Press Cycles system, through press releases to whole speeches and press conferences. It is, essentially, the media arena in form form.

The main principle of the Press Office system is that all contributions are posted in their own threads, but are marked integrally by the A-team - that means that speeches, press releases, and comments all get seen in the context of the debate that's going on at the moment. This is done through frequent marking - once we get to a whole page of PRs, the A-team will take it in turns to transfer all the PRs to the marking tray (traditionally one of these is "Tray N" - a reference to an immortal LibDem train resignation story) and mark the whole slew of PRs in one sitting known as a marking round.

During this marking round, the marking AV will give you a short comment on the impact of your PRs, and if he's so inclined and has got the time will also tell you how you can do better next time. He will also assign you momentum to your contributions and XP for speeches. At the end of it all, he'll update the momentum leaderboard in the "Momentum and Summaries" thread and accompany it by a summary of the way the debate in the press played out during this marking round, highlighting some of the key moments and if necessary, admonishing certain parties to do better. He may also award XP for the best PRs in the bunch.

There's one thing that's crucial to understand: the Press Office system is fluid. A marking round does not represent anything closely resembling an IG week or even a capped debate. That stuff, where relevant, will be taken into account in the marking. That means the marking round is just an arbitrary snapshot. What matters is mainly absolute performance in terms of momentum, and the moment you hit the reward threshold - whether a party is at +20 over its nearest opponent after a marking round that overrepresented them ends doesn't matter - so long as they were planning an offensive of their own. I'll spell out the most important consequence: do NOT spam the Press Office before a marking round. It doesn't work, and it only annoys us, your opponents, and yourselves when it's inevitably retaliated upon. It also distracts you from Parliament, which is just as important.

Comments, Press Releases, Speeches and Press Conferences
There's several ways to interact with the Press Office. We're asking you to distinguish between these in your thread title, so that we know what the intention is. Your thread title should contain your party, your type of press release abbreviated, and the title, in the form "Lab PR: the Can't-Do Government", "Con SP: Tinker Tailor Soldier Fooled You" or "LD PC: Presenting the Shadow Budget to a Crowd of Two Journalists".

I'll walk you through the formats here.

Comment-form Press Releases (PR)
The press releases are the spriritual successors of the comments from the Press Cycles, and essentially mini-speeches. They also hearken back to a time when people posted 500-word speeches in the Press Office and called them PRs. A comment-form Press Release is the simplest form, and is identified by "PR".

You may precede a comment-form press release by a text in italics telling us who you are and where the comment was given. Usually, this will be "to reporters", "on College Green" or "at Party HQ", but creative uses of this in certain situations might change our view of the PR.
Marty, a doctor in Political Science and the writer of this rules thread, spoke to the PolUK community on what a comment-form PR should look like:

"So, you have a comment-form press release, right? You know this one from back in the day with the Press Cycles system. You talk some, explain for example that a comment-form press release can in fact consist of one or multiple paragraphs, then you come to a bit in bold. This bit is the soundbyte and should be the punchiest wording of the main point possible.

You can have multiple paragraphs, and also multiple soundbytes. Don't overdo soundbytes. Chances are, if more than 10% of your text is bolded in a longer PR, you're doing it wrong. Like this soundbyte.

Well, there you have it, a comment-form PR! This form of PR is best used when you have to respond quickly, and when the comment stands alone. If you need more context, then a PR-form PR might be better."
Since comment-form PRs are easiest to write, be advised that while we mark them to a maximum of +5 or -5, it will be harder to hit this maximum than with a well-executed Press Release-form PR.

PR-form Press Releases (PR)
A slightly more labour-intensive but also powerful form of PR is the PR-form press release, which looks and reads like its real-life counterparts. Now, it does cost more time to write - but for that elaboration, you get a lot of opportunities for spin. You see, PR-form press releases don't just contain quotes from you: they also contain context, factoids, and maybe a little misrepresentation of what your opponents' actually said. It's like a mini-news article, but then written entirely from your perspective, presented such that the media could print it one-on-one.

A good PR-form Press Release harnessing these advantages can more easily get into the upper regions of the 5-point maximum for marking we've set it.
Marty: "A Press Release starts with a good title that catches attention."

WESTMINSTER - Dr. Marty of the A-team wrote an example press release in the PR form, trying to demonstrate what it looks like and some of its advantages

"It's just like real-life," explained the veteran AV. "You have a title, then text (if need be preceded by a location, a few quotes in it and an end." He also noted that not all text has to be in quotes. He for example explained that you can also just paraphrase a point you wanted to make outside of quotes. "Compare the quotes to the soundbyte. They can be a bit longer, but make them snappy - you don't even have to bold them."

The author of this rules thread further pointed out that some facts are always nice. He reminded users that although the comment-form was 100% used when he joined, the press release steadily gained popularity later on. "And you can see why. It allows you to send out cherry-picked information and frame it at the same time."

"Though longer than comment-form PRs, PRs in this form are most effective if they're as short and snappy as possible, and contain eminently quotable phrase," he further clarified, then stopped talking to make sure his PR was short an snappy.
Speeches (SP)
These are for a more considered and developed response to an issue. They are likely to receive press attention and so have a greater risk and reward factor. Journalists aren’t always particularly patient or understanding and definitely don’t like having their time wasted. The most important thing to know about speeches is this: they're powerful, but they require our approval more often than not. They can held in National Party HQ or any of the following locations within your constituency without A-Team approval: local party branch meeting, church hall, school, hospital, local chamber of commerce or branch meeting of a trade union. Schools and hospitals are unlikely to be suitable for overly partisan speeches. Any other location will need A-Team approval and speeches to national organisations will only be given out sparingly.

Speeches are marked out of 10, but speeches which require approval will be more likely to go to the upper end of the scale than "free" speeches (which carry similar potential XP rewards but sorry, they're not as eye-catching). Additionally there will be a round of invitations for prominent party members to speak at national events throughout the year. These speeches can go up to +15.

A speech should always be in full prose from your character, and in general we do not appreciate speeches which go beyond 1,500 words (if you can enrapture us though, be our guest). Journalists are too impatient to listen through that much of a politician's hot air!

Press Conferences (PC)
Press Conferences are the rarest. We'll have to give approval for those, and we'll only give it sparingly. This is to spare you the embarrassment of giving a Press Conference that nobody wants to come to. This includes press conferences to announce your Shadow Cabinet, or to tell how nice your new portfolio is. A good example that you'd use a PC for is the Shadow Budget.

When you give a PC, post a thread with a short introductory statement. The A-team will then take 48 hours to reply with a few questions from journalists. The quicker you reply to these, the more we can fire at you - and the more attention and potential rewards you get.

Press Cycles
I promised these would be back in a new form. Well, this is it.

On issues that we find important, we may want to direct your attention a little bit more. When this happens, we'll be launching a Press Cycle. This is a prompt, posted into the "Press Cycles" thread, representing the developing media cycles on key stories. When we post the press cycle, we'll introduce a prompt (a question we want you to focus on) and outline what rewards can be earned. Most of the time, this will be a momentum boost to the party we declare the winner (which may or may not get awarded in full, however) and XP for the best contributions. Think of it as a mini-contest!

Here's an example:
Press Cycle 1: The Budget

What do you think of the Budget? Is it good for Britain? If yes, what will ordinary Britons get out of it? If no, what should the government have done, according to you?

Momentum rewards: +10 for the winner
XP rewards: 1st place 3XP and a media interview, 2nd place 2XP and 3rd place 1 XP.
Compared to the old Press Cycles system, we'll use this more sparingly. It's up to your skills to determine what you need to respond to in the press most of the time.
Dr. Marty of the A-team
Technical Wizard
Education and Children, Health and Social Security, Environment and Energy, Constitutional Affairs
Scenarios
Conservative Party advisor
Post Reply

Return to “Press Office”