PR Studies

News release revisited

I've been asked for some advice from a student on how she can improve her news release writing skills. (Obviously my twelve-week module on PR Writing at the start of the previous academic year had faded from memory).

I know that the traditional press release is discredited and that we should be willing to experiment with new forms. I prefer the term news release because this describes its essential ingredient. I also feel that the discipline of writing a 'story in a sentence' is useful even if the document gets discarded, and that a grounding in news values is important for PR students.

Here are my tips on news release writing:

• Ask yourself 'what's the story?'. Make sure that the story is focused on a matter of public interest or customer benefit - not just on the client's desire for publicity. No story, no news release. Does it meet the following test: 'is it new, or is it surprising?'

• To help you think about news, it describes an event so you should be able to answer the question 'what happened?' News is conventionally written in the past tense (eg 'launched', 'announced').

• Now write the story in a sentence using short words and dropping the adjectives (the descriptive words that can easily lead to hype such as 'revolutionary'). For style tips read the first sentence of any story in a newspaper - especially the tabloids.

• The rest of the document should elaborate on this sentence using the inverted pyramid principle (most important facts first, followed by next most important and so on).

• Always include a quotation: this is the next most important component as it should express a real opinion from a real person. Check and discuss this quotation with them and never resort to a statement starting with 'we're delighted...' That's not new, not surprising and won't be used, though it's opposite might gain you some attention. 'We're ashamed of our new product and apologise for introducing it...'

• Put the company puff in the notes or use a hyperlink. Don't clutter the news paragraph with a lengthy description of the client.

• The client will want to change much of the above, assuming the news release to be a form of placed adverisement. You have to earn your salary by advising them that without news there's no chance of publicity and that the news release is the start, not the end, of a process.

• Images are usually helpful, but don't automatically send large file attachments. Plain text is best (and a phone call first is usually better).

Comments

News release revisited

I've been asked for some advice from a student on how she can improve her news release writing skills. (Obviously my twelve-week module on PR Writing at the start of the previous academic year had faded from memory).

I know that the traditional press release is discredited and that we should be willing to experiment with new forms. I prefer the term news release because this describes its essential ingredient. I also feel that the discipline of writing a 'story in a sentence' is useful even if the document gets discarded, and that a grounding in news values is important for PR students.

Here are my tips on news release writing:

• Ask yourself 'what's the story?'. Make sure that the story is focused on a matter of public interest or customer benefit - not just on the client's desire for publicity. No story, no news release. Does it meet the following test: 'is it new, or is it surprising?'

• To help you think about news, it describes an event so you should be able to answer the question 'what happened?' News is conventionally written in the past tense (eg 'launched', 'announced').

• Now write the story in a sentence using short words and dropping the adjectives (the descriptive words that can easily lead to hype such as 'revolutionary'). For style tips read the first sentence of any story in a newspaper - especially the tabloids.

• The rest of the document should elaborate on this sentence using the inverted pyramid principle (most important facts first, followed by next most important and so on).

• Always include a quotation: this is the next most important component as it should express a real opinion from a real person. Check and discuss this quotation with them and never resort to a statement starting with 'we're delighted...' That's not new, not surprising and won't be used, though it's opposite might gain you some attention. 'We're ashamed of our new product and apologise for introducing it...'

• Put the company puff in the notes or use a hyperlink. Don't clutter the news paragraph with a lengthy description of the client.

• The client will want to change much of the above, assuming the news release to be a form of placed adverisement. You have to earn your salary by advising them that without news there's no chance of publicity and that the news release is the start, not the end, of a process.

• Images are usually helpful, but don't automatically send large file attachments. Plain text is best (and a phone call first is usually better).