Planning the media release

Researching media, journalists and audiences

It is important to do some research about the media and journalists that you want to convey your work through when planning your media release.

• Think about what it is you want to communicate and the best medium through which this can be done.
• If it is a visual concept, TV and print media (newspapers) would be most interested.
• Facts, quotes and general information are suited to radio while graphs and figures would be appealing to print media.
• Identify your audience and determine which medium/s they respond to.
• Target journalists who have published or reported on similar and related topics.
• Develop an email contacts database of specialist publications and journalists (eg. health correspondents) that you think your work would be of most interest to, based on the audience/readership of these publications. Target your media release to this list.
  

Writing the media release

Structure - verb tense, language, style and presentation

• Use present or future tense in your media release.
• Promote information about your work as 'up-to-the-minute' as possible.
• Always write the media release in the third person, unless quoting someone.
• Using language a layperson will understand will help you simplify the 'vocabulary, concepts and technical terms'.²
• Always spell out acronyms in full the first time, using brackets () to display the abbreviated version.
• Highlight your key messages and make the first paragraph a brief, succinct and clear outline of the central ideas of your work. Include approved quotes in paragraphs two and beyond - print editors who decide to run with a media release often edit from the bottom up, quoting verbatim only the first two or three paragraphs.
• A media release should contain only bite sized pieces of your study supplemented with quotes. If one of the lines doesn’t say something interesting/useful, then lose it or redo it.
• The main body should be no longer than one page, with an additional page of background notes to editors detailing the finer elements of your work and contact details for media enquiries.
• Think of visuals to enhance your story and improve its appeal to journalists - post these on your website and send a hyperlink to them in your media release, or invite journalists to take some themselves² as enticement for media attention.
• Date your media release and mark it with either 'For immediate release' or 'Embargoed until 00:01' with the date the embargo is lifted. This indicates to editors whether they have time to follow up on a story before its public release date (commonly used for publications, announcements or events yet to be published) or if they can run with it immediately.
• Don't include a quote from someone who is unavailable or unwilling to speak to the media - obtain their consent to the quote (which you can draft on their behalf), their contact details and availability in case you get media requests for interviews.
  

Headline

• The headline should be short, catchy and relevant to the subject matter:
  "Make sure the headline matches the message. If the headline reads "Your Hair is On Fire!" it will certainly gain attention. But if the [communication] is actually about photocopiers and has nothing to do with a head in flames, then potential [readers] will just get annoyed... [and] feel duped."¹
• The first sentence of the media release should also draw on this headline, making it clear why this headline was used and how it sets the context for the 'story'.

Content - Employing 'The 5 Ws (and one H)' and using quotes

This technique comprises six questions, answered in the first two paragraphs of the media release³:

"As journalists have found for hundreds of years, all six questions are essential. Missing any of them leaves a gap that must be filled by assumptions or imagination."⁴