Public Relations Matters » news release

Distributing News to the Media

Barbara Nixon — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:28:00 +0000

Writing a news release is all well and good . . . but if it is not sent to the media for (potential) distribution, it’s a futile effort. I created this small crossword puzzle to help students understand some of the wide variety of options when it comes to news distribution channels. Try it out!

NOTE: Most clues in the puzzle come from:

Wilcox, D. (2009). Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques (6th Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

The Anatomy of a News Release :: A Baker’s Dozen

Barbara Nixon — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:31:38 +0000

The week of February 22, my PR Writing classes are learning about the components of a news release and writing their first news releases. I have recorded this short presentation for them to share “The Anatomy of a News Release :: A Baker’s Dozen.”

NOTE: I lost my voice earlier this week, and my voice is still pretty wimpy in this recording.

In order to benefit from this presentation, it’s best to have a news release from an organization–any organization–handy so that you can see how the 13 elements are used in “real life.” Go out to your favorite organization or company online, search for a section of the website called “News Room” or something similar, and find a news release there. This week, my favorite product is Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat Tea, so here’s a link to TM’s Press & Media section of its site.

Search Engine Optimization for Newbies

Barbara Nixon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:27:07 +0000

As part of PRCA 3030 (Social Media for PR), students are developing search engine optimized news releases. To help provide some background beyond the required reading of Edelman’s position paper, here are two sessions offered as part of Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing University that should prove to be quite helpful for those new to SEO.

As described on the Inbound Marketing University website,

In this class, you will learn the basics of SEO from Lee himself, as he walks you through how to optimize your website to start getting found in search engines.

So here is an introduction to SEO, by Lee Odden from TopRank Online Marketing:

via inboundmarketing.com

And for those who are curious and want to know even more, there’s also a session on Advanced SEO Tactics led by Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz.

Poynter’s NewsU Classes for #PRCA3330 & #COMM4333

Barbara Nixon — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:21:11 +0000

For spring semester’s PR Writing courses that I’m teaching for Georgia Southern University and Southeastern University, I am augmenting my own content and our textbook with several courses offered by Poynter’s NewsU.

Here are the courses we’ll be using:

Cleaning Your Copy – for Week 3
The Lead Lab – for Week 7
The Language of the Image – for Week 11
Writing for the Ear – for Week 12
Five Steps to MultiMedia Storytelling – for Week 14

Each of the courses concludes with a quiz. Please have the quiz score come to my university e-mail account.

[UPDATE: Complete the NewsU quiz for the course by Saturday midnight during the week it's assigned.]

Questions?

A Baker’s Dozen :: The Anatomy of a News Release

Barbara Nixon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:24:00 +0000

Regardless what company you are working with or which newspaper outlets you are sending a news release to, there are a baker’s dozen items that should appear in most news releases.

Anatomy Of A News Release

View more presentations from Barbara Nixon.

Del.icio.us link for 2008-07-13

Barbara Nixon — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:30:23 +0000

The Gobbeldygook Manifesto

So few marketing and PR people write well. Many of the thousands of Web sites I’ve analyzed over
the years and the hundred or so news releases I receive each week from well- meaning PR people
are laden with these gobbledygook adjectives. So I wanted t

(tags: PublicRelations newsrelease writing)

News Release Pet Peeves

Barbara Nixon — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:28:55 +0000

On Twitter this evening, I noticed that Jeremy Pepper (host of Pop! PR Jots) had started a discussion about things that drive him crazy in news releases. The discussion started like this: “Press release pet peeves: For Immediate Release. Really!? Is that why you sent it out over the wire at that time? Or did you want a delay?”

I started wondering what some other news release pet peeves are.

As for me, mispelt misspelled words make me want to pull my hair out. If I find a misspelled word, it always makes me concerned that will be other, less obvious, mistakes, too.

So (here’s where the audience participation part comes in), what are YOUR pet peeves in press releases?