How to draft a press release that will get published?
Nowadays, the relationships with the mass media are very important, because it is a very powerful and effective way to spread a message and to present an association or a project. Therefore, it is fundamental to know how to write an effective press release.
Mass media can be a great channel for promoting your activity and presenting relevant information to your target group. On the other hand, not any new thing that you have to share is media worthy, so the first thing you should ask yourself before issuing a press release is “Why is this important?”, “What new information does it provide to the audience?”, “Is it relevant for them?”, “Is there something unexpected or unusual about it?”. Have you found the answer to these questions? Great, then you are on the right track!
To continue you will also need to find an answer to the following questions and after to include it in your release:
Who? – who are the events presented including and, equally important, to whom is this information addressed to?
How? – how did things happen?
When? and Where? – what was the time and the space of this?
More or less, after finding out the answer to these questions, your press release is close to be ready and all you need to do is to present the answer to these questions in few short paragraphs.
How to start? Here are few steps you should follow:
How to draft a press release that will get published?
Practical exercise
Issuing press release
Find the errors in the following press release and rewrite in a correct way!
Volunteers will help association to recover an old building to receive a new project
The building of an old school is being recovered by the ProAtlântico – Youth Association with the help of many volunteers.
ProAtlântico – Youth Association is recovering an old building, with the collaboration of many volunteers, to start a new project called Casa Europa.
In the future, Casa Europa will be a place where the association will join efforts to promote an active life for the elderly people and the interaction between youngsters and elderly people. This great place will also serve to join youngsters and elderly from all over Europe.
The restoration of the old school is being done with the help of volunteers of many different associations and nationalities, as also with the support of many companies, which provide some specific materials and products to those works.
Here you can see which are some of the errors existing in the press release
Now, ask the participants to issue a press release about an event that their NGO has organised recently. After they are finished, ask them to group in pairs and to offer each other feedback about their work.
Questions for the debriefing:
- How did you enjoy making the press release? Was it difficult to turn your story into news?
- Do you think that now your press release has more chances of getting published? Why is that? What could you do more to increase these chances?
This project was co-financed by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Commission 