Know-How Exchange : Other

I work for a non-profit organization whenever we have events with clients where we may want to use their photograph in our materials or interview them for a story we are writing we have them fill out a general release form stating that we have permission to use x,y and z in any materials produced by us, without compensation to them. Well we also started doing a lot of PR and now we have press who come to a lot of our events. They are taking pictures and interviewing clients for newspaper stories. I’m under the impression that in those circumstances where press comes to an event we don’t need everyone to fill out the general releases because we are not the ones producing the story. Essentially it’s freedom of press. Am I correct? if so how can I better explain this to my colleagues.