10 Don'ts for Press Releases Writing a Press Release - Heritage Week

• It’s full of what Hazlitt called the ‘big, grey words of the lexicon’. If you sit in a bus and listen to
ordinary people talking, you’ll listen a long time before you hear words like ‘infrastructure’ or ‘policy
directive’.
Headlines should always be in the language of the reader not the writer.
• It’s passive. ‘Enabled by …’ is an indirect, passive way of saying something.
• It’s in the past tense, so it sounds historic rather than newsy
This is a good headline:
New Road Cuts Traffic Jams In Half
• It’s short. Tells the story in seven words
• It’s in vivid simple language
• It’s active: ‘Cuts traffic jams..’
• It’s got human implications. (Most of us have been stuck in traffic jams.)
• It’s in the present tense, so it’s newsy
• (The future tense would work equally well: ‘New Road Will Cut Traffic Jams in Half’)
• It’s imaginable. We can see traffic moving freely
When you’re writing a headline, remember that there is no obligation on the reader to pay any attention to
it. The obligation is on you to attract the reader. It’s pointless to say ‘but they should be interested in this’.
There are no ‘shoulds’ in mass media. You have to attract and persuade people to read your story: they
have a million and one alternatives. The onus is on the writer, not the reader. And that applies throughout
the writing of your press release.
2. A Good Press Release Answers the Key Questions in the First Paragraph
Why
For two reasons:
• If you story gets into the paper, and another, bigger story comes along before it goes to print, they
will edit your story. Under pressure, a sub-editor will simply chop off the end of it. So your story
must be understandable, even if what follows the first paragraph were chopped off.
• Readers are busy and distracted. They may not have the time to read every story to the end. So
you want to deliver the key information early, just in case.
The key questions are:
• What (is happening)
• Who (is involved)
• Where (is it happening)
• When
• Why
3. A Good Press Release uses Active Verbs and First Degree Words
This sentence uses the passive form of the verb: ‘The town hall was occupied by protestors.’
This sentence uses the active form of the verb: ‘Protestors occupied the town hall.’
Remember, if it’s a headline, don’t just go for an active verb, go for a present or future tense verb:
‘Protestors Occupy Town Hall’ or ‘Protestors to Occupy Town Hall’
Here’s the easiest way to remember this rule:
• BAD: Man bitten by dog (passive, past tense)
• GOOD: Dog bites man (active, present tense)
FIRST DEGREE WORDS are the terms we automatically use:
• Boat
• Book
• Face
SECOND DEGREE WORDS are the terms we use when we want to be more varied or impressive:
• Vessel
• Volume/Tome
• Countenance