Welcome to the 24-hour news cycle, where daily newspapers, round-the-clock TV stations and thousands of news blogs compete to feed our voracious appetite for the latest, most engaging and most outrageous news. Every day isn't a big news day, so journalists sometimes scramble to fill airtime and column space with fresh and timely stories. That's where press releases come in. Mainly used by public relations specialists, press releases are written to gain free publicity and contain enough information required to write a compelling news story. Public relations (or PR) professionals write press releases to catch journalists' attention, which will hopefully result in a widely read or viewed story that enhances the client's image. In this article, we're going to explain how to write an effective press release and then we'll go over the options for distributing a press release. What is a Press Release? A press release is a short, compelling news story written by a public relations professional and sent to targeted members of the media.

The goal of a press release is to pique the interest of a journalist or publication. The press release should contain all the essential information (who? what? where? when? how? and most importantly why?) for the journalist to easily produce his own story. A press release should read like a news story, written in third-person, citing quotes and sources and containing standard press release information. Then comes the headline, arguably the most important four or five words in the whole press release. The headline will be what the journalist reads first. If it's not intriguing, newsworthy and unique, he'll read no further. Like the headline, the summary should draw the reader in quickly and motivate them to learn more. Since a press release is supposed to look and feel like a story in a newspaper, it's important to include a location and date stamp at the beginning of the first paragraph. The rest of the body of the press release should answer all of the questions a journalist might have about the product, service or event that you're announcing.

If it sounds too much like a sales pitch, it will lose credibility in the eyes of the journalist. Press releases typically end with a short description of the company or organization that's issuing the release, along with a call to action. On the next page, we'll talk about how PR professionals make contacts. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, news is "any new information" or coverage of "current events," so a press release won't pique the interest of journalists unless it contains something truly original or is closely tied to current events. Several factors can make a story newsworthy. Timeliness is the most important, or else the story wouldn't be "news." Also important are the prominence of the people or organization featured in the story, the physical proximity of the story to the intended audience and the "human-interest" angle. Human-interest stories are emotional in content and frequently feature kids, the elderly, animals and charitable institutions. Journalists typically work a "beat," covering a certain type of news like politics, cars or food.

Determine the news area relevant to your idea and send press releases to the journalists who cover that beat. Even the best story idea will be ignored, if it's sent to the wrong person. There are many ways to find the right journalist for your story, and the method you choose will depend on how many people you want to contact. For example, if the story isn't very time-sensitive and mostly of local interest, you could read the local papers and look for reporters who write about similar topics. If the reporter doesn't list his e-mail address, call the paper and ask for it. If the story is of national or international interest and timeliness is key, then it makes sense to send the press release to as many pertinent media outlets and reporters as possible. There are paid press release services that broadcast story ideas to hundreds of journalists at once. PR Newswire allows you to search the editorial calendars of participating publications to see who's writing about what and when.

It also has a keyword-searchable database of more than 460,000 media contacts. For a fee, PR Newswire and similar services will upload your press release, edit it and e-mail it to as many media outlets as you want. It's important to remember that journalists are human beings like the rest of us and are more likely to pay attention to a press release from a "friend" than from a complete stranger. That's why public relations professionals cultivate relationships with members of the media. If you're writing press releases, it's smart to contact journalists who cover your industry to determine what stories interest them. First, you must come up with a killer headline. Since most press releases are now sent by e-mail, a poorly written subject line will earn an instant delete. Headlines must read like actual newspaper headlines, something informative and newsy, but creative and engaging enough to draw the reader in.

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