The Power of the News Release

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. This certainly isn’t the last word on the subject and others understand it way better. But they ain’t talking about it. Hopefully, this is a step towards individuals using the MSM for more positive ends.

Chapter 1: Hard Numbers

Currently, some 58 million readers buy daily newspapers. That’s down from 60 million in 1990. Newspaper online editions have taken up some of that slack, but their numbers have fell. Their ad revenues fell 10% on average in 2001 alone due to 9/11. Right now, the industry is back to pre-9/11 numbers.

Over 1500 daily newspapers operate in the United States today. Most also have online editions.

That means each and every day a profitable newspaper must fill space with news, commentary, and entertainment. And ads. Lots of ads. But the newspaper only gets ads when it runs stories of interest to the public.

But let’s focus on the news. Papers need local news, national news, international news, sports news, business news, political news, lifestyle news, entertainment news, fashion news, retail news, religious news, political news, culture news, and agriculture news.

Now, when the average person considers being published in the newspaper it is usually as a letter to the editor or as a guest commentator. However there is an opportunity for providing and spreading your particular viewpoint (political, commercial, philosophical, etc) by providing editors with news.

This isn’t anything new. Political parties and organizations at the state and national level are extremely adept at spreading political ideas via the news release.

And it’s not only the left that does this, although they are quite good at it. Conservative organizations and most corporations send out a blizzard of news releases. Even individual actors, CEOs, athletes, and others who can benefit from general public approval employ publicists.

Back to the newsroom. Let’s take the editor in charge of the Arts and Culture section of a mid-sized daily. She will be running news of the touring Broadway show. She will be running rumors out of Hollywood. She will cover the lead-up to an art exhibition at the local university. She will print details about the construction of a new movie theater. She will cover the fall line of a trendy fashion designer. She will cover the party of an ad agency that is celebrating it’ fifth year in business.

Get the picture? Okay. Because none of the news items above require a reporter to go out and sniff out a story. The idea that reporters in general prowl their beats looking for news is the stuff of movies.

The stories will originate from a news release sent by the organization that is being written about. The editor can either run the news release in its entirety (and put a reporter’s name in the byline...the best case scenario), re-write it, or edit it down to a couple paragraphs. He might even have a reporter follow up the information and do some interviews with contacts listed in the news release.

Bad news for newspapers (and good news for you) is that a Broadway show doesn’t open every day. Nor do art exhibitions or grand openings. That’s true for every section of the paper...even for the front “hard news” section of the newspaper.

This is why “slow news days” are responsible for the appearance of generally boneheaded stories.

Editors are starved for content. They crave words and pictures to fill the spaces between the ads. Editors love receiving lively, well-written, pre-packaged stories.

Besides being hungry for good stories, newspapers are eager to publish news releases from businesses, particularly those expanding or new to the area, because those businesses will be buying ad space in the future.

In the case of non-commercial enterprises, editors are eager to print engaging, even controversial items that stir up opinion.

New releases are one of the most inexpensive methods of communication. All you have to do is sit down, type out a letter, and lick a stamp. You can submit the same story to hundreds of newspapers and when one editor doesn’t pick it up, another will.

Done right, you have an excellent chance of getting your stories and ideas published in any paper across America.

The numbers are in your favor.

Coming Next: What’s News?