10 Don’ts For Press Releases
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Don’t type your press release in capitals
Don’t type your press release in italics
Don’t type your press release on both sides of a page
Don’t fail to proofread your release – or, better still, have it proofed by someone else
Don’t use clichés
Don’t use padding (‘with regard to’ ‘in the context of’)
Don’t send it late (some provincial papers stop taking copy much earlier in the week than you might think –
check with them)
Don’t send it to the wrong person – or the right person with their name wrongly spelled
Don’t use bold type to emphasise points in your release
Don’t open quotation marks and forget to close them
Writing A Press Release
The hope animating the writer of any press release is that, when it’s finished, the release might appear in the
newspaper, unchanged.
If that is to happen, the press release must read the way stories in that paper read.
Obvious? In theory, yes. In practice, no.
Some organisations send four page press releases, filled with words like ‘infrastructure’, ‘peripherality’ and
‘subsidiarity’ to broadsheet and tabloid newspapers.
The end result is that the stories rarely appear in the tabloid papers: because they’re not presented in the way
tabloid newspapers write their stories, which is:
Short/ not long
Accessible, not obscure.
There is a strong case for sending different types of press releases to different media. A story presented as a radio
script and written in the spoken word has a much better chance of getting on radio than the same story presented
in the written word.
A number of key principles are common to all good press releases:
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A good press release has a good headline
A good press release answers the key questions in the first paragraph
A good press release uses active verbs and first degree words
A good press release keeps the Fog Index in mind
1. A Good Press Release Has a Good Headline
Each and every day, we are all bombarded, inundated with information from radio and the headline on a news story
is like a free sample. It gives us a flavour of what the overall story is about. If the headline does not grab us, we
are unlikely to read the rest of the story. Therefore, it may not matter how good the story is if it has a poor headline
on top.
This is a poor headline:
Infrastructural Upgrade Enabled By EU Allocation Of €300,000 Following Campaign Related To
Peripheral Areas Policy Directive
Here’s what’s wrong with it:
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It’s too long. 16 words is twice too long. A great headline can be spoken in one breath.
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It’s full of what Hazlitt called the ‘big, grey words of the lexicon’. If you sit in a bus and listen to ordinary
people talking, you’ll listen a long time before you hear words like ‘infrastructure’ or ‘policy directive’.
Headlines should always be in the language of the reader not the writer.
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It’s passive. ‘Enabled by …’ is an indirect, passive way of saying something. (Passive language is dealt
with in more detail on page 12).
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It’s in the past tense, so it sounds historic rather than newsy
This is a good headline:
New Road Cuts Traffic Jams In Half
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It’s short. Tells the story in seven words
It’s in vivid simple language
It’s active: ‘Cuts traffic jams..’
It’s got human implications. (Most of us have been stuck in traffic jams.)
It’s in the present tense, so it’s newsy
(The future tense would work equally well: ‘New Road Will Cut Traffic Jams in Half’)
It’s imaginable. We can see traffic moving freely
When you’re writing a headline, remember that there is no obligation on the reader to pay any attention to it. The
obligation is on you to attract the reader. It’s pointless to say ‘but they should be interested in this’. There are no
‘shoulds’ in mass media. You have to attract and persuade people to read your story: they have a million and one
alternatives.
The onus is on the writer, not the reader. And that applies throughout the writing of your press release.
2. A Good Press Release Answers the Key Questions in the First Paragraph
Why?
For two reasons:
1. If you story gets into the paper, and another, bigger story comes along before it goes to print, they will edit
your story. Under pressure, a sub-editor will simply chop off the end of it. So your story must be
understandable, even if what follows the first paragraph were chopped off.
2. Readers are busy and distracted. They may not have the time to read every story to the end. So you want
to deliver the key information early, just in case.
The key questions are:
What (is happening)?
Who (is involved)?
Where (is it happening)?
When?
Why?
3. A Good Press Release uses Active Verbs and First Degree Words
This sentence uses the passive form of the verb:
‘The town hall was occupied by protestors.’
This sentence uses the active form of the verb:
‘Protestors occupied the town hall.’
Remember, if it’s a headline, don’t just go for an active verb, go for a present or future tense verb:
Protestors Occupy Town Hall
Protestors to Occupy Town Hall
Here’s the easiest way to remember this rule:
BAD:
Man bitten by dog (passive, past tense)
GOOD: Dog bites man (active, present tense)
FIRST DEGREE WORDS are the terms we automatically use:
Boat
Book
Face
SECOND DEGREE WORDS are the terms we use when we want to be more varied or impressive:
Vessel
Volume/Tome
Countenance
In order to understand a second-degree word, we almost have to relate it to its first degree equivalent. In news
stories – and in press releases – first-degree words are better, because they don’t make the reader work.
Use of first-degree words is sometimes described as the KISS rule: Keep it Simple, Stupid
4. A Good Press Release keeps the Fog Index in mind
The Gunning Fog Index is about sentence length.
Based on observation of the pattern of attention given by readers to printed material, it suggests that the longer a
sentence, the thicker the ‘fog’ through which the reader has to get the message.
8 – 10 word sentences are clear and easy to understand
10 - 15 word sentences are slightly less clear and easy to understand.
15 – 25 word sentences mean that the fog is thickening
25+ can mean the sentence becomes impenetrable.
The following sentence, for example, has 67 words:
‘through optimisation of mass media publicity opportunities while ensuring correct presentation of
visual identification materials, it is possible to highlight opportunities available to potential
beneficiaries of Structural Funds through the portrayal of successful projects already extant and at
the same time alert members of the general public to the role played by the Member States
together with the European Commission in the process of developing the regions.’
It would be much more easily understood if it were broken into five or more sentences. (It would also help
if it used first-degree words like ‘Logo’ instead of ‘visual identification materials’).
A shorter sentence version might read like this:
‘Successful projects are the best way to show what Structural Funds do. Potential beneficiaries get
to see what opportunities exist. And the general public learns how the Commission and Member
States are helping disadvantaged regions. These projects would be publicised in all media to
make sure the message reaches everybody. The Structural Fund logo would always be used so
people remember the name.’
[Ends]