News releases: selling your story.

• Author: Harasym, Shirley
• Position: OFFICE ESSENTIALS

Dating back to the early 1900s, news releases have been the oldest form of contact with the media, and are the absolute foundation of any publicity program. A news release (also often called a media release) is your major point of contact with the media, and is also the most reliable way to "get the word out" as it is the source of so many news stories. Your business or organization will almost certainly receive its share of coverage if the news stories are well written.

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Such a vital communication piece is well worth doing properly and is really not difficult if you keep some basics in mind.

When promoting a newsworthy event, the news release is your pivotal communication piece to the local media. Even if you should choose another method of approaching the media, such as holding a news conference, it will almost certainly still involve writing a news release, and so it is well worth your-while to know how to create an effective one.

Remember that there are many other releases competing with yours for newspaper space or air time, and that busy news editors and reporters will often make quick judgments on which ones will receive further consideration. That is why both format and content are so important. Results of an Angus Reid survey of news editors illustrated this fact perfectly when it showed that, of the vast number of news releases received, only about 13 per cent are considered useful. Now, the goal is to make sure yours is in that category! In order to know how to prepare an effective release that is attention-getting for all the right reasons, it's very helpful to know the wrong reasons and to take a look at why so many are rejected.

Since newsrooms are busy places and receive so many releases, staff can often take only a couple of seconds to judge them--if it looks like news and is professionally constructed, chances are that it will receive further consideration.

Releases are commonly rejected for being too long and too numerous--that is, too many from the same source. If the contacts that are listed are unavailable or difficult to track down, it will also not receive the attention you want.

Basics for release writing

Ensure your release is neatly typed on plain white eight-inch by 11-inch plain white bond paper. No matter how much you may want to fancy it up with interesting designs on brightly coloured paper--don't!

Some company letterhead contains a lot of information in itself (names and phone numbers...