News Releases
I draw on my experience as a journalist when writing news releases. During my newspaper career, I received countless releases that were dry as day-old toast and would have failed miserably to grab any news editor’s attention.
They almost always required doing follow-up, assigning a reporter to make at least a phone call or two. Given that I had a limited editorial staff, as do most news media outlets (big or small) today, there were rarely enough bodies to do all that follow-up. Most releases ended up being tossed aside.
Unlike many public relations specialist, I write releases that are what I call “press-ready.” They are fully formed—and interesting—news articles that an editor would consider ready for publishing “as is.” Keep it short is the standard PR mantra with regard to news releases, but I prefer to think in terms of “make it complete.” Furthermore, I now always try to include photographs with my releases, signaling to editors that this artwork is available to them.
Jackson County COMBAT
Making It Complete
This release reflects my “press-ready” approach and demonstrates how I will, whenever possible, include artwork with a release to indicate to a news organization that the story can be supported with strong visuals..
Jackson County COMBAT
Being Proactive
I prepared this release as a follow-up to a news conference, but I wrote it beforehand to provide to media members “on the spot.” This is my standard practice to influence their coverage and to make the reporters’ lives a little easier through providing a roster of participants so that the media will have correct spellings, organizations and official titles.
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