How to write a news release
The news media - newspapers, magazines, radio, television - can play a major role in your public relations program. News releases are normally used to make initial contact. Often, however, they are poorly written, and long-winded, containing little that is newsworthy. If you want to get valuable and accurate media coverage of news about your organisation, these important guidelines should be followed...
1. Prepare the release for the appropriate medium.
Unless you package your news release for a particular medium, you may be wasting your time and other people’s. For example, a television station will be interested if you highlight visual aspects of the event involving movement and colour. A local newspaper will be more interested if the event features local identities and issues.
2. Make it timely.
Your news release must be sent before the event, not after it. The media want news as it happens, and are rarely interested in history. Stale news is no news. But if yours is an old event or story, you might just be able to resurrect it as news if you give it a topical new angle.
3. Find an angle for your story.
Whatever the medium, your news must be something that is new, unusual, even sensational, up-to-the-minute, affecting many people, and in the public interest. So it's important to lead with something about your event to catch the attention of the news editor, something that will make interesting reading or viewing or listening. Find an angle that is innovative, creative, beneficial, funny, or out of the ordinary.
