For just about any public relations campaign you’ll write news releases as part of the strategy. To write a release that journalists will read, however, takes finesse. There are some rules you should follow for the best results. In this post, I’ll outline nine rules you need to know for writing a news release that gets published.
Rule 1: Use a proper news release format.
While there is talk of the social news release that is replacing the traditional news release, the basic format has remained the same. A news release is a short article sent to journalists with the goal of earning publicity. To write a news release, however, you should make them clearly identifiable and organize the information in a way that makes it easy for reporters to write from.
- Get to the point quickly.
- Write about news that will interest the audience of the newspaper.
- Pitch something attention-getting to the editor.
And for the general format — the information you should include — here’s a list:
- Company name.
- Communication Manager’s contact number.
- Include “For Immediate Release” in the top third of the page.
- Release date.
- Dateline.
- You story.
With today’s technology and social news releases platforms, much of this information is a matter of completing fields with information. The application generates the results where they should appear.
Rule 2: Organize the story in an inverted pyramid.
A headline, lead, and the body of the story are the different parts of the main body of a news release. Your headline must be concise and present the most important point in the story in a style that grabs the reader’s attention.
The lead should include the who, what, when, where and, perhaps, the how of a story. Traditionally, journalists write news stories using the inverted pyramid, where the first paragraph summaries the whole story, and succeeding paragraphs flesh out the story. Here’s what makes the inverted pyramid style of writing different than other styles: information flows from most important to least important. (This helps in editing. If there are space concerns in traditional media, the story can be cut from the bottom up, preserving the most important parts of the story.) With new media, space is not so much of a problem, but the inverted pyramid style should still be used because readers have a finite amount of time. Respect their time and give them the information they need up front.
Rule 3: Use appropriate style.
I may catch some flack from bloggers out there, bit I firmly believe news releases should ALWAYS be written using AP Style. It’s the writing convention most media outlets follow. Because they follow it, it makes sense that we do too, if relationship-building is part of our communications effort. By writing in AP Style, we eliminate a lot of copy editing for journalists. That saves time.
Rule 4: Find a hook, angle, or theme for your release.
A new release will attract more attention with a special hook. A hook does what it says it does — it hooks the reader. It’s a literary device. Here’s an example from my work:
Falling leaves and a chill in the air — winter is coming. Is your home ready for the frigid blast of Jack Frost? Having the right amount of insulation in your home will keep you warmer in the months to come, and may prevent ol’ Mr. Frost from nipping at your pocketbook. We can’t help you with the rosy nose and cheeks.
I connected a story about insulation with winter, and had a little fun with the words — Mr. Frost nipping at your pocketbook. Humor also goes along way too. The journalist ran this story, kept my lead and hook unchanged and ended his article with the a touch of humor, provided by yours truly. At the end of the story, he wrote:
They claim better insulation can help you save money. But they can’t help with rosy noses and cheeks.
While a hook is a great way to draw readers and journalists into your story, an angle is a specific way of viewing a topic and can be used to position news in a different point of view. Finally, a themed approach ties your story to a larger issue, typically a current event. Each of these can be used together or separately. However, for a good news release, I’d recommend adding all three.
Rule 5: Let the medium dictate the content and tone of your message.
Learning everything you can about the publication you plan to send your news release to, because your writing style and tone should match the publication’s. If you can, find the writer’s guidelines. If they are not posted, email the editor and request a copy. If you pitch a news release to a television producer, include a video.
Rule 6: Deliver news, not hype.
Want journalists to ignore you? Send them hype. One colleague of mine says this, “If an editor thinks your release is an attempt to get free advertising, your story will never get printed.” A journalist I know tells me that “anytime I get something that remotely smells like hype, I delete it from my inbox, period.”
Send news, not hype.
Rule 7: Make headlines concise, relevant, and attention-getting.
I mentioned headlines earlier. But let me emphasis one point. Headlines are your first entry point into a story. If you can’t grab a reader’s attention with a headline, your news release has failed to do its job. Speaking about headlines, one editor puts it this way. “It’s supposed to arrest the readers’ attention, arouse their interest, make them want to read more and move them into the text, where the information is.”
Rule 8: Give your story immediacy.
Some editors will publish stories weeks or months old; however, time limitations for TV, radio and daily newspapers lend favor to stories that are timely. You can make your news release more timely by tying it to current events. Remember I mentioned themes in Rule 4?
Rule 9: Use quotations to add character and the human element.
Quotations from people involved in the story humanizes the information. They also can be used to support the story and entice editors to run with the quoted material. Quotations make the story a story with characters that readers and the editor can relate to. When people relate to characters, this can be a very powerful literary technique to draw people deeper into the story because the information becomes secondary (at least consciously), and the character takes center stage.
A good public relations campaign strategy may have some element of media relations. You may want to get news about your organization published for the greater good of the organization’s brand. Following these nine rules as a general strategy to writing news releases will increase your likelihood of earning the coverage your campaign deserves. You’ll see a positive return on your public relations investment.
