I thought that this chapter about news releases was very interesting to read and learn about. The first big point that I picked up on was that your story should be something that is actually considered newsworthy, meaning it’s current and important information. Your story shouldn’t just be an advertisement for a new product, but a compelling announcement about why that product or service is important to have or be informed about right now. A large part of this writing style is catering to your audience by making sure that what you’re informing them about is actually relevant to their lives. A news release also needs to be written in an unbiased way. This means that although it is structured as an AIDA document, you are not allowed to use persuasive language or give your opinion about the product. Quotes however, are the exception because they come from someone tied to the company or product.
This chapter also discussed the importance of each individual piece of the news release and the ways that the small details can either all work together to make an informative piece, or one component falls flat and they don’t work very effectively at all. As expanded on a bit throughout the chapter, editing is a rather unforgiving field which makes it extremely difficult to get your news release published for others to hear. Creating a well written news release takes a lot of time and attention to detail. Still, every piece of the release can be written correctly and checked over by you a million times, and editors will still find something to correct or get rid of.
