Tips on writing media releases

published 2001

Journalists receive hundreds of media releases a day. Why will they choose to read, let alone use, yours? It's all too easy for a journalist to file your story in the rubbish bin if it's too hard for them to read.

1. What do you want to say? Try and summarise it in one short statement before you start to expand or develop your ideas.

2. Shorter is better when writing for the media. The release should be no more than two pages long.

3. Use one side of the sheet only.

4. Answer the Five Golden Rules:

• Who
• What
• When
• Why
• Where

5. Use the 'pyramid' approach to writing your release:

• The main news summarised succinctly in the first paragraph.
• Information in its descending order of importance in subsequent paragraphs.
• Check that by working from the bottom of the story up and taking out paragraphs that the release still tells the story you want.

6. Don't use superlatives or descriptives such as 'pleased' 'excited', 'exceptional' 'unique' etc.

7. Write simple short sentences. Ideally don't have more than two sentences to a paragraph.

8. Include a quote from a person, identifying the person by name and title and putting the comments in quotation marks.

9. Include the name and contact details at the bottom of the release of someone who can provide more information

10. Finally, put your release through the Microsoft Word 'spelling and grammar' and 'language' check.