Week 8 Blog- Press Release

1. I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were...
- The reading shows a beginning PR practitioner how to brush up their writing skills in order to produce a well polished press release.
- There are 10 steps in ensuring that the text of a press release is of a high standard. They are:
· Ensure that you are presenting information that is of genuine worth to the audience and general public.
· Don’t mistake a press release for an advertisement, this means that you shouldn’t have to sell the content of the press release, if you do than it is obviously not newsworthy.
· Always write to your audience. Don’t think that one size will fit all, it is important to vary the style and format for different newspapers.
· Keep it short and succinct, no more than two pages.
· Make the heading relevant and use a sub heading if necessary.
· Be careful and clever with quotes; use a credible third party as their words are usually not subject to bias.
· Do the reporter’s job for them. If you provide support material to the reporter and show them how the story impacts their readers, it is more likely to get published.
· Keep the boilerplate to a minimum; only include a brief company description and some information on when the company was established, number of offices it operates, and contact and web site information.
· Give a tag-team of contacts; put a pair of contact people on the release.
· Check and double check, this includes both spelling and fact checking.

2. The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that …
The reading made me think about how I write a press release and whether or not I follow any of these guidelines. These guidelines will assist me in the future when writing a press release. They are clear, concise and to the point which is beneficial when trying to remember a number of valuable tips and words of advice. I will be keeping these guidelines for further use.