News Release (General) News (press) releases are objective stories written in newspaper style to inform media gatekeepers about various promotions. Gatekeepers discard more than 90 percent of the news releases they receive, so a release should be newsworthy, timely, and hold the interest of readers. Additionally, an effective news release should maintain a local focus and not be overly promotional, which displeases most journalists. The news release should be printed on an organization’s stationery (3-point collateral piece) and begin with the heading: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE and the composition date. Contact information data should be shown in the heading. A news release headline is written in the same style as newspaper headlines, and the entire text of the news release should be no more than two pages, one page being ideal. News releases can be sent electronically via distribution services for a high-number impact.
Announcement News Release The most utilized type of release is the announcement release. These releases publicize declarations, such as the appointment of a new executive. An announcement news release follows the same guidelines as a general news release. The opening paragraph answers the questions who, what, where, when, why, and how. Additionally, the structure follows the inverted pyramid style of writing with the most important information presented in the beginning and the remaining information presented in descending order of significance. Announcement press releases should be written in the past tense, although present perfect tense can be used if the event happened in the recent past. (For example: TD Waterhouse has announced a merger with Ameritrade.) Be sure to include pertinent quotations from appropriate sources within the organization.
Feature News Release Feature news releases are essentially human interest stories. These are published much less frequently in the media than announcement