The News Release

{ February 5, 2012 @ 2:57 pm } · { PR Connections::COMM 4333 }

In this post I’m going to cover some points in Chapter 5 “Writing the News Release” in the book Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques by Dennis L. Wilcox including…

1. What a news release is.

2. Parts of a news release.

2. What it looks like.

3. What the components of it are.

1. What is a News Release?

A news release, AKA a press release.  A press release is a short, compelling news story written by a public relations professional. It answers all the questions: Who, what, where, when, how, and why.  It is sent to members of the media. The goal is to pique the interest of a journalist so they can write a news story off of it.

2. Parts of a traditional News Release (You have six basic components):

1. Letterhead
2. Contacts
3. Headline
4. Dateline
5. Lead Paragraph
6. Body of Text

(A seventh element is optional and it is a short summary of the organization.)

It looks something like this:

There are different types of News Releases:

1. Announcements
2. Spot Announcements
3. Reaction Releases
4. Bad News
5. Local News