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The art of the News Release

A short course on how to prepare a statement for release to the media, and how to get it out there.  The course is written by science journalist and Editor of Geoscientist, Dr Ted Nield.


1. The News Release


Also known as a Media Release and (by old timers like the author) as a Press Release, the News release is a device originally invented by government for the orderly and timely dissemination of news about its doings. This tells us much about what a release is useful for, and what it is not.

Hard News, Soft News


Governments affect everybody, so news about their policies and practices are “hard”. Hard news is news that not only has to appear on the day it has to appear, but the paper or programme looks incompetent if it does not appear. Hard News is the news which, if not in the paper, the Editor will want to know why – with the implication that the news desk or its specialist correspondents or both are failing.

Every journalist will try to get exclusives, i.e., stories nobody else has, but "hard news" is information without which the organ is deficient, and which therefore must be in it if everyone is to keep their jobs.

So, it should be obvious therefore that for news that everybody MUST cover, a news release (which everybody gets) is useful because it cannot compromise the content. It is also important for informing journalists of the views of special interest groups, about public policy issues, for example. Such bodies, because their reactions represent factions of interested public opinion, can be the ancillary half of a hard news story. Thus in particular areas, it should be the case that a hard news story will look deficient if it fails to include the views of a well known representative lobby group.

There is a third function for the News Release, and that is to put on the public record the views of a particular body. Such releases are best thought of as “public statements” because this does not imply that they are expected on their own to command the attention of journalists. Journalists often forget that they are not the only audience for things called “News Releases” and sometimes laugh at the (from their point of view) hopeless statements put out occasionally by certain bodies apparently in the hope of gaining coverage. It is in the latter assumption that they are often mistaken. However it is true that such policy statements are best put somewhere visible and public, say on a Web site, so that they can be said to be "out there" without wasting journalists’ time, and thus annoying them.

What are News releases not suitable for?


We have seen three potential useful ways in which News Releases can be used. However, all these uses centre on hard news emanating ultimately from Government or other bodies who may be considered “hard” within their limited spheres. Releases are not suitable however for “soft” news, news that has no role in public policy. Nevertheless, in terms of sheer numbers of releases issued, especially in science, this is the use to which they are most commonly put – by commercial companies, PR agencies, universities, institutes, learned societies, and so on. Why is this?

Let us take the example of a piece of university research which could, promoted correctly, bring the institution and its academics some good valuable positive public relations. Let us take the example of a lecturer in a department of paediatric medicine who had discovered the cause of a hitherto mysterious debilitating disease among children in a developing country, and had instituted the means of its eradication.

In the case that this story was perhaps a little old, or was not connected to an imminent publication (which would give the story a definite date on which it would be said to emerge) this would be a good exclusive for the Health or Overseas pages of a quality UK daily. However, in the absence of a publication or a conference date, which might carry it into more outlets, to put such a story on – for example – a University News Release promoted by the University’s PR department, would be to kill it stone dead for all except specialist news outlets for those particularly interested in appropriate technology and development issues – like for example the Web site SciDev.net.

Where news values are higher, as in UK dailies, no editor will touch a soft story compromised in this way so that everyone has it, whereas they might take it exclusively, for example, from a freelance contributor who is offering it to them, and them alone.

It is difficult to say why so much soft news is squandered in this way, though it is probably a combination of a) ignorance of the above facts and b) inappropriate management targets for PR personnel that involve counting press releases instead of resulting coverage.

This is important for science PR because nearly all science news is "soft".

[Incidentally, another rule of thumb about hard and soft news is that hard news usually finds you (as a press officer). You almost never see hard news coming. If on the other hand you are trying to get what you think is a good story out and having to persuade people, then you can be almost sure that it's soft. "Hard" science stories would include: "Cure for Cancer/Common Cold discovered", "Man lands on moon", and "Scientists discover limitless supply of free energy". Just about everything else is "soft".]

A good university press officer may produce a news release, but will carefully distribute this only to those whose news values are low enough to carry it. However the best method probably involves no press release at all, but giving the story instead to a trusted freelance who will then sell it exclusively. The other side of this coin is that institutions should adjust their expectations to getting one piece of good coverage for a soft news story, rather than holding out for blanket coverage that they are never going to get.

Summary - lesson 1

  • Press releases work best for Hard News, or the views of representative bodies affected by hard news.
  • Press releases can, even if they lead to nom actual coverage, be useful instruments of public policy in that they are evidence of a body “going on the record”.
  • News releases generally kill soft news stories stone dead, except for very specialist outlets with low news values.