News ReleasesPart III

Irony of irony. A blogger telling other bloggers how to play the MSM game. This series is written to help individual conservatives and writers of blogs understand and better use the MSM. The Introduction is posted here. The second installment here. This certainly isn’t the last word on the subject and others understand it way better. But they ain’t talking about it. (Please raise your shot glass and take the Class Oath) “I swear to God that I thought the bell tower was part of the range.”

Okay. So we’ve discussed the sheer volume of stuff that the media must spew daily. We’ve also covered that journalists spend most of the day either waiting by the phone for a story to show up. And you’ve learned that editors are fine and dandy printing news stories about A, written by A.

Now, how can you be A? How can you, as an opinioned nobody get exposure in the media? (Without having an accompanying photo of you being escorted into the back of a police cruiser and wearing nothing but your cousin’s underwear and handcuffs.)

The two biggest As are commercial enterprises (business) and political activists (usually leftists).

Let’s first look at how business uses news releases. It’s easier to show how they communicate specific messages.

A smart business will issue news releases to

Introduce a new hire

Introduce a new product

Announce a new location

Announce planned expansion

Announce a recent acquisition

Introduce new procedures

Announce new and favorable survey results

Announce new and favorable research

What do the about have in common? Right. Everything is new. In corporatespeak, “new news.” In these articles, the business’s name will loom large throughout the story.

This is the bread and butter of the newspaper’s content. Publishers save bazillions in journalist salaries thanks to XYZ Corp’s steady stream of pre-fab news stories.

)And who knows more about XYZ Corp than XYZ? Why, just go ask XYZ, they’ll be happy tell you.)

A savvy few business will go further. They will use the news release to build their business while keeping their name mostly hidden. In fact, the reporter will be credited with the story which is the Golden Result.

Here’s an example. Last summer, a full page story appeared in a national paper. The byline was one of the paper’s reporters. The story quoted researchers and child development experts saying that hands-on play was more beneficial than computer games. Kids became more socially involved and playing with real toys rather than passively watching television and moving characters by remote control. The story was well-written and appealed to parent’s common sense.

The hands-on activities included sports, gardening, and oh, and there was a picture of the brand new _____ doll.

The entire story was written by the PR agency of doll’s manufacturer. Ohhhhh, conspiracy. Yeah sure. But that didn’t make the research any less credible. And the story still had to be interesting.

(It seems that an ungodly amount of scientists and researchers are employed by business simply to prove a point. Scientific research is expensive but goes far in establishing credibility. Can’s put a Ph.D. on your payroll? Then find a student in university. Do some tests. Be honest. Take notes. Favorable results can be prefaced with “university researchers have discovered...“)

So what lessons can we take from the stealth doll example?

First, when you start to write a news release, make certain you know what you want to communicate. But you don’t have to state the purpose of your story in your story.

Then marshal your facts and construct a credible argument.

Finally, communicate all of the above in a lively, understandable, and entertaining way.

Next: What do you want to say? What do you really want to say?

More to come...