1. Press releases

2. What are they?
Press releases are an effective way to communicate with the public
Through them, business intentions, priorities, and accomplishments can be converted into newsworthy items
Regardless of topic or function, all press releases follow a pre-formulated structure and style

3. Press release topics
Major corporations in many counties around the world are required by law to publicize their annual financial reports, and many do so by issuing press releases
Other possible topics can include: education, human resources, teaching, research, the economy, politics, health, the environment, fashion, home decorating, and even gardening.

4. “Newsworthiness”
Regardless of the topic, all press releases include a measure of newsworthiness
The whole idea of a press release is to get media outlets to print the news
(Which is essentially free advertising)
Newsworthiness just means demonstrating the ways in which the topic of your press release is relevant to what people are interested in.

5. Press release functions
The primary function is to quickly publicize information to a large, unrelated group of people
The emphasis here is on UNRELATED—which is why press releases are written for a general audience
Common goals include:
Contain a crisis
Provide consumer information
Launch a new product or service
Recall an existing product
Cease providing an existing service
Announce coming events
Report on past events
Welcome new staff members
Profile existing staff members
Highlight awards received

6. Press release structure
Structured like a standard newspaper article
Information is presented in an “inverted pyramid”: descending logical order, from most important to least important
When information is presented in this manner, readers get the gist of the story in a hurry

7. Style in a press release
Must be well written and factually accurate
Think of how a poorly written press release would hurt the ethos of the issuing company
Hyperbole (language describing something as better or worse than it really is), cute spins, and overt sales pitches are not acceptable

8. Style tip #1: State the facts
Avoid being vague
Instead of announcing “wonderful results,” be specific:
For example: say that you have a “a $1.2B profit to report.”

9. Style tip #2: Emotions Avoid strong expressions Example:
Boasting, bragging, anger, finger-pointing, etc., are all inappropriate
Example:
NO: We have made a profit again!
YES: The company has returned a profit despite the difficult economic situation…

10. Style tip #3: Keep it simple
Make sure the news you are reporting is not obscured by:
technical jargon or
complicated grammatical constructions

11. Style tip #4: Be specific
Place and time cannot be vague
Words such as “here” and “today” are not acceptable as, taken out of context, they’re unclear
Example:
NO: Today…
YES: On April 24, 2012…

12. Style tip #5: Avoid personal pronouns
Words such as I, we, and you should not be used in a press release unless they are part of a quotation
Example
NO: We, here in our factory…
YES: Bekaert, a world-wide leader in steel,…in its Manchester-based factory…

13. Formatting press releases
Press releases should be laid out in full block style (do not indent paragraphs) using a universally accepted font (Times New Roman, Arial)
The five basic elements are:
Title
Headline
Body
Contact Information
Ending

14. Title
Press releases should begin with the title words FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
This indicates to media outlets that the information included in the press release can be used right away
If the information cannot be used right away (for instance, when a press release is issued before a press conference), then an embargo, or lock up notification, must be issued

15. Headline The headline, separated by one space, should follow the title
It should contain no more than ten words when possible
The first letter of each key word should be capitalized
Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions should be capitalized only when they occur at the beginning or end of your headline

16. Body
The body of a press release should contain all the pertinent information
It should be separated from the headline by one space, as should each of its paragraphs
A press release should begin with a lead paragraph and conclude with a boilerplate (an organization’s standard description that is used repeatedly without change)
A press release almost always has a quote from someone in the company
The higher up the food chain that person is, the more important the quote

17. Contact information
The sender's contact information can appear before the headline or after the body of a press release, separated by one space
There should always be contact information of some sort

18. Ending
The end of the press release should be clearly marked with one of the universally accepted character sets used by the media to indicate that the end of a document has been reached
These include:
-30-
###
End
If your press release is delivered by any other method than and exceeds one page in length, the word More should appear at the bottom of all but the last page

19. Title
Date and contact info 
 Headline
 Sub headline—not always necessary, but if your headline is trying to convey complex meaning, a subhead might be useful
Boilerplate information 
 The universally accepted characters are missing at the end, but this press release was posted to the organization’s website

20. Citation Information for this powerpoint was provided in part by
Geert Jacobs and Peter Connor.. ( ). Press Releases. Colorado State University. Available at