Making a Press Release Newsworthy

When I started my business, I specialised in writing press releases. But as the world moved more online, that side of my business waned, and in the last two years, I have probably written only two. So it was a real blast from the past when I received a call from the owner of a well-known company, asking me to write a press release.

The owner had recently launched herself in the UK market, and is planning to use her press release to introduce herself. Journalists love juicy newsworthy angles, and the owner had been on a well-known TV programme which would be familiar to UK audiences. She felt that this would attract the interest of the UK media.

Creating the Press Release

As a former journalist, I’m used to writing news articles, so I write press releases in that style. This means the main message of the press release will come through clearly in any coverage the business receives. It also means the coverage will be more factually accurate.

So I focused on the five Ws of journalism: what, when, where, who and why. I start with what, to get straight to the point about what makes the business newsworthy. When and where also covers practical information that people need to know.

I then elaborate on who is involved in the story: a well-known business owner or customer, or a person who may have benefited from the business. And I finish with why, because the reason why business people do what they do can be compelling, and makes for a memorable quote to finish.

Newsworthy Press Release

The service the company offers is quite feelgood and lifestyle oriented, but her style of speaking is quite crisp and matter of fact. So I aimed to create a press release that reflected her style, even though many of the outlets she’d be approaching would be more soft-focused.

Journalists really want to know if you’re media friendly, and this business owner certainly had that quality. So I hope that journalists will see that quality in the press release, even though it doesn’t have a current news angle. It’s more about introducing the company to the UK media. Certainly, the client was happy with it, and that’s my main priority.

Do you still send press releases? Do you still feel they’re relevant in an online world? If you’re a journalist, do you still rely on them as a source of news?

The Irish Media vs The Catholic Church

Apologies for my absence in recent weeks. I know you’ve all been suffering severe withdrawal symptoms. But I am back to replenish you once more with regular blog posts. I’m going to return to my roots on this blog and explore an issue that has pretty much bothered me ever since I first trained as a journalist: what I perceive to be the inherent prejudice shown by the Irish media against the Catholic Church.

Media Perception of the Catholic Church

When I was studying for my Masters in Journalism in Dublin City University, I was fascinated by religion and felt much more of an affinity for religion than I do now. I completed a thesis on Opus Dei. I was able to clarify what the Immaculate Conception actually meant. I expressed belief in the idea of divine justice.  as a result, I became the go-to person for religious issues.

Though nothing was said, there was a definite vibe that my classmates considered belief in the Catholic Church to be quaint at best and ripe for scorn at worst. And I have seen this vein of thought carried through in pretty much all the coverage I have read and heard since then, aside from contributions made by well-known Catholic commentators.

Examples of Recent Coverage

This issue was brought back into my consciousness recently by three items on radio stations. On Today FM, Ray D’Arcy made the sweeping, catch-all statement that the Catholic Church had “f***ed up this country.”. This remark won him a lot of praise on print media.

The other two incidents were on my local radio station. One priest was accused of warping children’s minds by reading a pastoral letter about the abortion referendum. Another presenter began a discussion about a thorny issue relating to burial rights in a reasonable, measured manner, but the discussion soon descended into a broadside against the Catholic Church as a whole.

What Right Have I to Comment?

After all, I have now become one of those wishy washy Catholics who frequents churches on special occasions and for what I call ‘sexy masses,’ Masses held in the open, or with lots of singing, which makes worship easier. But I believe you can’t ever wash away the faith you were born with. And that is why this unbalanced coverage of Church issues in the media bothers me.

There is an awful lot wrong with the Catholic Church in Ireland, and it is brilliant that the media has played such a strong role in holding the Church responsible for its actions. But I feel that because of these scandals, the media sees ordinary priests and believers as fair game, and that media coverage takes a tone that it would not take with representatives of other religions. I believe journalists simply wouldn’t get away with it.

The fact that I’m less of a believer now may weaken my argument. After all, there’s nothing more tedious than people becoming offended on behalf of people who might not necessarily be offended. My view is simply that of a human being who doesn’t like to see the genuine beliefs of others being disrespected. I don’t think they deserve to be treated as if they are simpletons. And I know a lot of good priests, who are already doing a hard, lonely job, and whose job is made that bit harder by media coverage that tars them with the same brush.

Why the Scorn?

This is not an academic article; I would have to do a good deal of research to pinpoint the reason. I can only surmise that it’s an ongoing backlash against decades of oppression. Look at us, the coverage seems to gleefully say. We can get away with writing whatever we want about the Church.  Aren’t we cool, the way we can kick over the traces of the old Ireland?

What Can the Media Do?

I’m not looking to go back to the days of censorship and pro-Church coverage. I would just like to see a more balanced approach to media coverage of the Catholic Church. I want to read articles that offer neutral coverage of Church events. I would like to hear radio interviews that show respect for the other person’s opinion. I want to see media coverage that makes intelligent efforts to address the question of whether the entire Catholic Church has ‘***ed up the entire country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Post by Annette Gartland: Writing Creatively as a Journalist

In the early days of my blog, I wrote a post called Journalists and Writers – Two Very Different Species. The post was based on my own experiences with journalists and creative writers, and it’s received quite a lot of hits since it was first published.

Recently, the journalist and poet Annette Gartland posted such an elegant rebuttal in the comments section of that post that I invited her to put together a guest post. This post seriously raises the tone of my blog and I hope you’ll find it a meaty read.

A former colleague once told me that if I wanted to do creative writing I would have to leave journalism; that the two ways of writing were incompatible. I understood what she meant, but now, some 33 years later, I am still a journalist, and I still write poetry.

Are creative writing and journalism incompatible? Are journalists simply news machines, pumping out the latest – often biased – information with no concern for the nuances of language and the beauty of words? Or is there room for creative flair in everyday reporting?

Some would say don’t go into journalism if writing is your objective. I would disagree. I wish more journalists actually cared about writing, and spent time learning about grammar and punctuation. Thankfully, many do.

Journalists of course need to be interested in people and events, but a passion for news and communication and a love for words can go hand in hand.

Good journalism is not just about facts, figures, and deadlines; we need to be fast and accurate, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot also write prose that sings. And good headline writing is not just a technical skill; it requires talent and creativity, too.

Now that I have my own website, I can be much more creative in my journalistic writing than I used to be.  With so many people blogging, and so much of our communication happening via Facebook and Twitter, the line between traditional journalism and other writing is blurring more and more all the time.

I’m at an advantage because I’m a freelance. I’ve adapted the way I work so that I am not on a news treadmill. On my website, I can write lengthy, in-depth articles, blend travel writing with socio-political analysis, and choose my own angles.

Essay-style journalism is nothing new, however; The New Yorker, for example, has always run long-form articles of great literary merit.

In an article for NPR (formerly known as National Public Radio) in the United States, the organisation’s media correspondent, David Folkenflik, says long-form journalism falls into two categories: “investigative or watchdog reporting” and “richly textured nonfiction narratives that delve deeply into the human experience and may have nothing to do with that day’s headlines”.

Many journalists are purely newshounds, with no interest in creative writing. This is particularly true on the tabloids, but I learned as much about writing when working for the tabloid Irish Press as I did on broadsheets. It takes skill and creativity to reduce a day’s events to ten paragraphs.

Radio and TV journalists can get away with being less-than-competent writers, but print or web journalists who write badly are dependent on sub-editors – most of whom have a real love for words and grammar –  to make their work readable.

Any creative writing I now do is all the better for the training I received at journalism college, and as a sub-editor on The Oxford Times. Learning how to sub-edit definitely makes you a better writer.

I wrote from an early age – about my experiences and from my imagination. In my last year at secondary school, I won a creative writing award and, for my prize, I chose Harold Evans’ book ‘Newsman’s English’. It was clear that journalism would be my priority.

(I still balk at Newsman’s in the title of Evans’ book, but the former editor of The Sunday Times certainly knows his stuff.)

There are lengthy periods when I don’t write a single poem, and I would perhaps write more poetry if I weren’t a journalist. But working as a journalist brings me into contact with people, places, and situations that I don’t just report on; places in particular also inspire me as a poet.

Australian researcher and communications tutor Janet Fulton has written a comprehensive paper entitled “Is print journalism creative?”

She says the idea that print journalism can be creative is not universally accepted because “making a story up” goes against the fundamental understandings of journalism. “Further to this, society’s understanding of creativity is that a producer must have no limitations to be able to create and the rules and conventions a journalist works within are seen to constrain their production of creative media texts.”

Fulton points out that the Western understanding of creativity implies that a creative idea comes from nowhere but the imagination of the individual. “This understanding is rooted in the Romantic ideal of a lone genius, slightly mad, who must be free of any constraints to be able to Create.”

She concludes: “Rather than using a narrow, person-centred view of creativity, encouraging a broader understanding could lead to better journalistic practices.”

For Fulton, all genres of print journalism have structures, and practitioners of all genres can be creative within their own structures. “In the domain of journalism, the assertion that hard news writing can be a creative endeavour could provide a better understanding of work processes and improve writing practices.”

Fulton notes that numerous journalism awards mention creativity in their criteria.

Middlesex University in London, the University of Bedfordshire, and the University of Strathclyde in Scotland all run combined creative writing and journalism degree courses, and the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey, is planning one. There are similar courses in the US, Australia, and Canada. The London School of Journalism runs creative writing courses, but separates them from journalism studies.

I’m happy that I did a straightforward and very practical journalism course, where I was given a solid foundation for the working years to come. I don’t think it would have served me well to be taught about creative writing at the same time.

It was later that my creative side blossomed again, and, a few years ago, I did try to stop being a journalist so as to concentrate fully on poetry, and a monologue. I realised, however, that reporting is in my blood, and probably always will be. But I also love creative writing.  Thankfully, for me, the two are not proving incompatible.

I’ll keep straddling the two worlds and, when asked, I’ll describe myself simply as a writer.

–        Janet Fulton’s paper: http://ejournalist.com.au/v11n2/Fulton.pdf

© Annette Gartland

Annette Gartland is a writer (journalist and poet), radio and video reporter, editor, translator, reiki teacher, and DJ. Her website, Changing Times, is at http://time2transcend.wordpress.com/

How Journalism Teaches You to Write

I was once a journalist. Now I’m more or less not. It’s because I realised that journalism is not as compatible with writing as we’re led to believe. Still, the skills I learned as a journalist have been hugely helpful in my writing. Here are a few of lessons that our friends from the media can teach us.

5. Figure Out Your Story

Journalists are experts at identifying an angle, an ingredient that makes a story stand out. Before you write a story, you need to figure out what to say with that story. The angle you choose will be your guide rope, preventing you from drowning in your story.

2. Be Concise

Journalists have be able to make their points using as few words as possible – space is at a premium and their audience’s attention span is short. They quickly learn to spot words and sentences that are surplus to requirements. When you’re editing your work, see if you can cut down the length of your sentences, or if the sentence needs to be there at all. You’ll soon start to see the dead wood in your writing.

3. Don’t Be Precious

Journalists can’t sit around waiting for the right words to come along. They have a deadline to meet, so they can’t afford to be afraid of the blank page. They just put in the yards. You can bring that same discipline to your own writing. Write every day, regardless of whether you have an idea or not. To paraphrase Picasso, when inspiration strikes, it’ll find you working.

What Journalism Teaches You About Writing

In one of my earliest blog posts, when I was still making the transition from journalism to general writing, I wrote that journalism and writing were not as compatible as they seemed. I’m still glad of my journalism grounding though, because the skills required for journalism contain valuable lessons for writing, particularly if you’re going for publication.

I’m going to outline a few of them now

1. Get to the point

In journalism, you only have a limited amount of space to say what you need to say. So you learn to weed out any unnecessary words and phrases and develop a crisp, concise style, making every word work for you. When you’re writing, being able to express yourself using very few words increases the emotional impact of your writing.

2.  Find Your Angle

When you’re developing a story in journalism, you need to know what’s newsworthy about it. What’s the angle that will make your story interesting? This angle acts as a roadmap when you’re writing your story. It helps you to decide what to keep in and what to take out. Put simply, anything that doesn’t relate to your story goes – including that beautiful sub plot that you can’t quite bring yourself to kill.

 3. Stick to deadlines

Journalism teaches you to be disciplined about your time. If you don’t send in your copy or broadcast by the deadline, it doesn’t get used. The same applies to publishing. After all, time is money. When you know you have a date to aim for and that there’ll be consequences if you don’t meet the deadline, you’ll soon smarten up your act. The deadline can even be a motivating factor; knowing that people are counting on you to send in your work helps you to see the value of it.

Ultimately, being a journalist helps you to be ruthless and rigorous with your content. It’s the level of rigour you need if you want to survive in the dog eat dog world of publishing.

The Manglification of the English Language

A few weeks ago, I heard a member of the Irish Arts Council say that her organisation was “FOI-able,” meaning that it was possible to look up Arts Council documentation under the Freedom of information Act. When I heard it, I shuddered.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with the phrase. It’s not grammatically incorrect. It saves you having to say a full sentence. The problem is, it rings false. It’s strangulated, robbed of real meaning or context.  It interrupts the flow of the language. It’s an example of how people shoehorn the English language in an attempt to sound smart and current. In other words, they put the language through a mangle.

Plastic letters – words that ring false.

 

 

Here are three more examples of words that mangle the English language in different ways.

1. Stickability

A comedian was heckled for using this word during a routine. Someone shouted up, ‘There’s already a word for that, it’s persistence.’ A word like “stickability” is a classic attempt to reinvent the wheel. In fact, it’s an over simplification. Words like persistence, perseverance and tenacity have a rich context behind them, of striving and overcoming.

2. “Doing” a country

When people recount their adventures in long haul travel, they like to make themselves sound like Genghis Khan. They talk about “doing Thailand” “doing the temples” and even “doing Europe.” Aside from the delusion this gives that they’ve conquered pastures new, it sounds as if they’re ticking off a list. Words like “visit” and “see” show that you’ve taken in and appreciated the places where you’ve been to.

3. Impact (as a verb)

People being interviewed on a radio love to convert nouns into verbs. I imagine this gives them the sensation that they’re current or happening. Instead, they sound a little false. “Impact” is one of the most common examples of this, as in “This impacts hugely on the community.” Ironically, this robs the word of its emotional weight. Changing it back into a noun conveys the idea of a deep effect more accurately.

Have you got any example of what I like to call “mangletronic” words, words that sound all right on the surface, but ring false?

A Tale of Two Press Releases

I have a journalistic background and I use this to offer a press release writing service, with the aim of giving people the keys to the kingdom of the media. My background in journalism and my experience with businesses has given me some perspective on what gets you results in the media.

Journalists have a love hate relationship with press releases. They know they need them to fill those white spaces, but they wish they didn’t need them. They do like press releases about new books, especially if you give them a review copy. But they view most business press releases with disdain, seeing them as little more than a plug.

I wrote two press releases this week. The business owners I wrote for were fairly typical of people who want press releases; they liked the idea of being featured in the media and they wanted immediate results. But to achieve that, they needed to figure out what their story was.

Types of Press Release

Three types of press releases attract journalists’ attention. Ones with a solid, current story, like a new business opening, an award win or a new range of products. The press release for Lucy Nagle Handbags fit that category. It’s a new business, with a pop up shop opening in December.

The second type ties into a topic that’s trending in the media. Funky Goddess’s products tie well into the parenting slots and supplements that appear every day in the media. I slipped in a tweet to a national radio show where the presenter was talking to a child psychologist about a girl who was entering puberty earlier. A product that celebrate periods is bound to cause a bit of controversy – and that’s exactly what happened.

Tie into hot topics in the media: parenting and puberty

And the third press release type, possibly the most successful of all in our visual age, is the picture press release, where you just send in pictures with catchy captions. Both businesses had great scope for this. The pictures tell a more powerful story about their products than words ever could. Pictures are handy for journalists, because they fill stubborn corners of white space  left over after articles and ads have been slotted in.

A handbag paints a thousands words: pictures as press releases

 

Partnership

Creating a press release is a partnership process. For both businesses, I asked the owners questions to help me pinpoint the news angle. These questions aren’t meant to be homework, but if you show your enthusiasm for your business, it’ll be a lot easier to create a memorable press release. I also asked the owners to check the releases when they were done, to ensure that they tied in with the message they wanted to put across.

Getting Results

As for getting results, the media isn’t the silver bullet that people think it is. You need to cultivate relationships with journalists just as you would your customers. And social media is proving to be a brilliant way to do that. Not only are journalists on social media, but they are actively using it to find stories.

Samantha Kelly of Funky Goddess is a Twitter whizz (@funkygoddessirl) and she’s keen to make an impact in the UK. I sent her a list of 10 UK journalists to follow on Twitter. This will let her bypass the wall of gatekeepers that surround journalists and communicate with them directly. It’s still not a guarantee of immediate results, but you’ll get results a lot faster than trying to approach them the traditional way.

Telling the Story, Selling the Story

I’ve been to lots of networking events in the three years since I set up WriteWords, my copywriting service. And I’ve come to identify an unspoken question in the minds of the people I meet. What can a writer do for me? Don’t they sit in ivory towers, churning out masterpieces?

Here’s my answer. I can help you find the right words to achieve your goals.

Here’s how it breaks down. Whether we realise it or not, everyone has a story. And I help people tap into the power of their story. Our stories make us who we are. Because they come straight from our hearts, they have great emotional resonance. And because they’re our own stories, they help us to stand out in an increasingly noisy world.

The trouble is, you’re too close to your own story to see that power. So I help people to figure out what their story is?  Why would you want or need to do this? After all, everyone pays more attention to pictures than words? But you still need to know what to say.

If you know what to say, you can say it consistently, in all your communications. This will help the people you want to reach get the message. And because not many people take the time to do this, you’ll have the edge when you’re persuading other people to buy your book, use your services or donate to your charity.

We’re living in an increasingly noisy world, with a lot of different media clamouring for our attention. Whether we like it or not, if we want to be heard, we have to sell ourselves. And telling your story is a great way to sell yourself. Because you’re sharing your experience, your passion and your knowledge, you don’t feel like you’re selling at all. And because you’re making a real emotional connection with the person you’re talking to, they don’t feel like they’re being sold to.

There are three groups of people who would particularly benefit from defining and refining their story.

Small and medium enterprises: As a business owner, your first priority is to grow your business. And words can help you achieve that goal. Words are your secret weapon in marketing your business. If you take the time to define your message, you’ll have the edge over your competitors. This isn’t just pie-in-the-sky stuff. You can actually measure the impact of your words using Google Analytics and other analytics tools supplied by WordPress, Facebook etc.

Writers and Artists: Artistic people struggle with the concept of selling themselves. But how are people going to know about the wonderful work you’re doing unless you tell them? All you have to do is let them know about what you do, through tools like social media, blogs and traditional media. If you’re a writer looking to be published, it helps to be able to get to the heart of your story, so you can persuade publishers of its merits.

Charities and Community Groups: These groups are lucky. They have a treasure trove of powerful stories at their disposal. They can tap into the life changing experiences of their members and beneficiaries to get their message across. People will be drawn by these uplifting stories and be encouraged to dip into their pockets, or to avail of the services the offer.

Next week, I’ll be outlining the services I use to help you tell your story. If you’d like to find out how I can help you, drop me a mail, derbhile@writewordseditorial.ie.

Playing with Words

This weekend, the fields will be full of people playing, kicking balls of various shapes and sizes. Writers like to play too, but their playthings are words. It goes without saying that if you’re a writer, you love words. And you’re always kicking them around in your head, pulling them apart and putting them back together.

Playing with words isn’t just nonsense. It can be a way into your story. That’s because playing with words frees up your mind and gives you access to the cave of wonders that is your imagination. As your inhibitions go, the ideas flow.

Here are a few ways you can turn words into your playthings.

1. Alphabet Soup

Write the 26 letters of the alphabet down one side of a page. Then write 26 words to match. See if you can break up those 26 words into sentences. Each word will begin with the next letter of the alphabet. For example.

A Black Cat Drifted Eastwards

Keep going until you’ve reached the end. The sentences can be as daft as you like, as long as they’re recognisable as sentences. And you can give yourself a bit of leeway with X and Z.

 2. Play with the Dictionary

The dictionary contains many wonderfully obscure words. Open a random page, look for the weirdest word you can find and see if you can them in a sentence. Or, to really challenge yourself, pick three words and see if you can weave them into a one-paragraph story.

3.  Word Deconstruction

Worried that your writing is cluttered with clichés? All you have to do is play around with your sentences. Change the order of the words, drop a word, turn a noun into an adjective or a verb and you have a completely original image.

For example.

He charged through the crowd like a battering ram

Becomes

He battering-rammed through the crowd.

Or the classic ‘he was as white as snow,’ becomes

He was white snow

Or even

He was snow.

4. The Laughing Tree

They say writing comes from the subconscious. The best way to tap into your subconscious is to just let the words flow onto the page, without stopping them or worrying about their order. Doing that helps you come up with wild and wacky images, like a tree laughing in the wood. It’s known as free writing and it gets you past that little voice that tells you your work is crap.

Feel free to suggest your own ways of playing with words.

Premier Journalism

The phone call came on a Thursday afternoon. Work was quiet; my brain was gripped by a late afternoon slump. But the call snapped me back to attention. It was the editor of a newspaper in my hometown of Clonmel, The Premier People. Did I want to edit the paper for the month of August?

She made the job sound easy, a chance to use my editing skills. In reality, I have to fill nine pages with stories, at a time when the courts and councils are off, the criminals have gone on holiday and even the press releases have dried up. Still, the rust is starting to flake off and my dormant newsgathering skills are starting to come back to life.

Getting a newspaper to press is a bit like reading a thriller. You’ve the suspense of wondering will it be done on time, yet at the back of your mind, you know it will. Despite a quiet season, there have been some juicy news stories to get my pulses going. Who’d have thought I’d be grateful for a plane crash?

And journalism is wonderfully varied. You get a chance to talk to all kinds of interesting people. So far, I’ve spoken to an ex-priest, Mr Gay South Tipp (who goes by the colourful name of Gordie Gooney) and a woman fighting against the repossession of her land. Thinking of interesting questions to ask them is fun too.

Throughout my journalism career, I’ve tended to concentrate on features rather than news. So I’m drawing on my feature-writing skills to fill the pages with stories about the arts, tourism, heritage and articles giving advice to parents of schoolgoing children and those about to leave school.

I’ve always scorned the idea of relying on press releases to fill newspapers. I call it microwave journalism – the equivalent of reheating your dinner. Now I fully understand the temptation. When an ad gets pulled at the last minute and you’re looking at an acre of white space, you’ll fill it any way you can.

For the past two years, I’ve been advising businesses on how to approach the media for coverage. Now I’m in an even better position to advise them. Bottom line, you’ve got to send in a press release with a proper story, no blatant promotion. But if you do, you’re showing an editor that you’re available to talk to them and they will consider it.

Oh and they love a picture. Pictures fill in those pesky corners of white space that aren’t big enough for an ad or an article. But it’s essential that the picture is good, because if it’s not, there’s a chance your whole story will be dropped.

My editorship of The Premier People has restored my appetite for journalism. Journalism will always be a valuable part of my writing portfolio and I will be working strongly on ways to adapt myself to the journalism market as it stands, so I can continue to keep my journalism muscles flexed.