I often click through to free and smaller press release upload services when writing For Immediate Release Fridays when hoping to find that bad news so furtively shoved in the closet at the end of the week.

So I became excited by the potential for LOL upon finding the Comedy Newswire recently. Ambitious and creative comics could have a field day with it, and conceivably upload a release every time they run an errand or walk their dog.

Why hasn't their been a release since Emo Phillips talked to R. Chris Brown back in February?

I asked our favorite comedian/blogger and Fishbowl L.A. blogger Tiny Dupuy to explain (after the jump):

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I'm running somewhat late on this edition of For Immediate Release Fridays due to a vacation. Luckily, the only burried bad news you have to worry about this week is some undeclared dairy in that ready-made garlic bread at the supermarket. There's also the expected flurry of activity surrounding the big Supreme Court decision so I thought I'd include a release about that.

Also please note, the Avenue Q song "The Internet is for Porn" seems to be correct. The investment exchange for porn business is red, red, red hot:

Stop & Shop and Giant issue voluntary recall of garlic bread

Gun totin' second Amendment Foundation up in arms over a Chicago Trib editorial which characterizes the amendment as an anachronism

And for those considering plunking money in to social networking startups, look not to Silicon Valley, rather the San Fernando. AdultVest, a financial services company focused on the adult entertainment sector, awarded the Hedge Fund Launch of the Year

[Former LiveNation CEO Michael Cohl]

Co-editor Jason is away on vacation, so that leaves yours truly to deliver this week's "For Immediate Release Fridays," our weekend look at the buried bad news uploaded to the wires on Friday night.

Got bad news? Make it public on Friday at 5pm. People will care less, trust us.

In this edition:

Music industry bohemoth Live Nation announces that Michael Cohl has transitioned to a consultant role from his post as Chief Executive Officer.

A new economic report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors Annual Meeting in Miami reveals that U.S. economic growth for 2008 has weakened considerably, while unemployment and consumer prices have risen sharply.

The Schwarzenegger Administration, in an eleventh hour move, took action to delay a hearing on a temporary restraining order (TRO) sought by eight retail community pharmacies to stop the ten percent Medi-Cal provider cuts from taking effect on July 1, 2008

It seems we've struck a chord with our posts on the press release approval process. Notes from readers keep coming in.

From reader Brooke, "I worked for a major corporation and the news release process was laughable."

From reader Jnyx, "It's been my experience that Corporate America likes to wash all the creative language off a news release and then hang it out to dry in a paraded march down the hierarchy of corner office inboxes."

Full responses, after the jump.

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We asked for your response to our post about the press release approval process, and have recieved some interesting notes.

One tipster writes in:

I very much welcome the concept of a review process, but some people are just idiots who feel like they need to get reviews and approvals over and over again every time a comma is added or a minor change is made. It's the PR pro's responsibility to help shepherd through the process. Perhaps by having just one person review it first, then pass it on to another, before copying everyone on each and every draft.

What's your take? Let us know.

Waiting for press release approval from your boss, client and their customers or partners is a standard procedure in the PR industry. News often can't be made public until all of the involved parties have signed off on it.

Many times, this is referred to as "hurry up and wait," because you have to get the release copy out fast, only to wait for your colleagues to review and approve it. Over at the inmedia PR blog, Linda Frost dissects this process, and makes a point some of us are likely familiar with: size matters.

Typically, though not always, the larger the organization, the longer you're going to have to wait for sign off. There's a good chance that the materials will have to float up through a sophisticated communications department to a c-level executive, and come back down through the ranks back to your hands. These departments are busy with announcements and initiatives of their own and so sometimes your news will have a lesser priority in the sign-off pile.

What's your experience with press release approval processes? Do you have a good story to tell? Let us know.

This edition of For Immediate Release Fridays features only one release.

In the past, I've had to turn bad press releases on their ear, as in the case of a fringe group protesting the American Idol's charity efforts.

Tempted to do the same with a group protesting The Pill, I kept reading and found not only their 'Pill Kills' message in the release, but links to articles that slam the organization including an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, and an article in Feministing, a top blog.

If you're going to push a retro anti-feminist, anti-science rant, you might as well court the controversy and link to opposition. You've just saved bookers at the cable networks, and bloggers a few steps.

We all write them, even if we sometimes question their effectiveness.

Hubspot has released a new tool to help us with this process, called Press Release Grader, which, according to them:

...evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score. This score is based upon basic factors from public relations experts including the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.

Says HubSpot Chief Software Architect & Founder Dharmesh Shah, "Press Release Grader will not make your press releases more interesting -- but it will hopefully give you some quick tips for getting more value out of them."

[WebInkNow]

Sid Schwartz at TGW Media for this beautiful gem:

New York Plastic Surgeon to Save Hampton's Real Estate Market

Park Avenue Plastic Surgeon Stephen Greenberg is announcing the Hampton's Plastic House in which for a half a million dollars, a lucky consumer can get a summer mansion in Hampton's with a season full of lipo, new boobs and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treatments including, a full time nurse and chauffeur to take you back and fourth to the hospital for surgery.

He will also throw invites to celeb parties and a new summer wardrobe for the changing.

Sent to us by a fellow mediabistro editor, who claimed, "Possibly my favorite release of all time."

One of this morning's must reads is a guest post by FutureWorks principal and PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis over at TechCrunch.

In his post, "The Evolution of the Press Release," Solis breaks down press releases into four neat categories: Customer-Focused News Releases, Traditional Releases, SEO Press Releases and Social Media Releases.

Surely, there can always be some overlap in these categories, but the tactics outlined are a rock solid starting point.

A stat we've seen tossed around lately, Solis cites a recent Outsell study that found "over 51% of IT professionals reported that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals."

With newswire releases popping up more and more on Techmeme and other news aggregation services, it's time well spent to make sure your release is finding its way to the right people.