Tips for Your Media Moment & Beyond  

Press releases and pitch letters come in all shapes and sizes. Books, websites and writing experts can show you how to format a press release and there are freelance writers and others who will even write them for you.

My feeling is if you have a good story and you tell it to the right reporter or producer, you won’t need a release to get airtime.  But press releases have many uses and if you want one, these suggestions come from reading a ton of them over the years.

The thing is TV/radio people don't generally READ press releases.  They scan them so here are a few basic points to consider:

Keep it short.  Write a one page release. Two pages at the most.   Give it a strong headline like you'd see in the newspaper or on a magazine cover.  Make them want to keep reading.

• Tell me a story -include a colorful quote and/or a couple sentences of a storyline. Reporters are storytellers.  Nothing attracts us more than hearing the beginnings of a good story.
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• Use a clean simple format with white space.  Bullet points, short sentences, lists and other visual devices help the eye move quickly across the page and land on the important information.
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• Make sure the facts are correct and use spell check.  Be sure you can back up what you say in the release.  Play it straight without a lot of  flowery adjectives or empty hype.  Don’t write a sales-y marketing message.  Double check names and numbers for accuracy.  If I don't know you, a release that makes questionable assertions, looks sloppy, is full of errors or feels like a sales pitch makes a bad first impression.
  
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• Avoid jargon and insider language. Show me you can communicate to MY audience clearly and directly, especially if it's a complex topic.
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• Provide complete and correct contact information.  It's hard to believe, but people actually do forget to include their contact info or make typos on phone numbers and other mistakes.  If I email you and it bounces back or I call you and it's the wrong number, you lose.  I'm dialing the next expert.   Don't make me hunt around for it either - include your contact information clearly and prominently on the release.
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Bottom line - keep your release tidy, tell a story and make it easy for the media to scan it quickly and make a decision.  With any luck, they'll want to hear more from you.