When we first started working on the news release I was kind of intimidated because based off of the book’s description, it requires very specific formatting and word choice to be effective without sounding too much like an advertisement. After going through the workshop process as a class and completing the project I definitely feel more confident in my ability to write a news release, and it now seems much more simple than I had previously thought.
It seems like the key to a successful news release is getting straight to the point and stating the facts without showing the audience your opinion or including any unnecessary information. This is easier said than done of course but with practice it seemed to get much easier. Workshop helped a great deal during the drafting and revision process to highlight what information could be trimmed down and said in a more concise manner, and which elements should be highlighted as more important or stated earlier on in the piece. It also helped us to make our news release more visually appealing and readable to the audience that it was intended for.
I found that working in a group was very beneficial for this project. We divided the work into sections based on the AIDA model so that we could each focus on one of the key elements of persuasion. After workshopping as a class, we were able to finish the piece by working more cohesively as a group and combining all of the sections so that they flowed well together to create a piece that was effective but also didn’t follow the AIDA model too closely.
