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05.07

News Releases for Engineers

By Robin C. Peress

How many times have you opened a trade paper or journal, read a glowing blurb about someone’s job promotion or new product, and said: Wait a second, why aren’t I in here?

Back in November, the Today’s Engineer Online article “Engineer, Promote Thyself” talked about the big picture of public relations — what p.r. really means, what it entails (e.g., advertising, marketing, targeted pitches), and how to put its techniques to work in short order.

One p.r. tool, the news release, is worth examining in close-up. News releases are like amino acids in the peptide of public relations: essential building blocks in shaping your company’s image. Deceptively simple, news releases — a written announcement of news that you send to the media — pack a lot of punch into one page. From the contact information at the very top, to the ender “###” at the very bottom, a news release should tell the reader everything they need to know about you, but in four paragraphs.

To tell an important story on just one sheet of paper requires a knowledge of anatomy. News releases have an anatomy of their own — different from letters and e-mails or reports. This anatomy — the unique set-up and content of the release — has one goal in mind: to motivate the editor to print your information.

Editors are special creatures often working with a proverbial gun to their heads. Under intense time pressure, they search for and home in on material that meets certain ideals for publication. These ideals include:

• Brevity

• Neatness

• Formatting

• Everyday language

• Organized thoughts

• Accuracy

• Honesty

Without these features, your news release is unlikely to get ink because the editor will not have the time or inclination to make it right. Worse, your news release may get printed as-is with mistakes or wording that readers can’t make sense of. Sometimes even doing all the right things doesn’t pay off; sometimes the vehicle simply runs out of room. But public relations is a continuum, and if a particular press release doesn’t get run, one must try again the next time there’s news.

A news release has components that rarely if ever vary. This format is used whether you are a one-person operation or the communications director of a multinational firm. It should have the following:

• Contact information in the upper right — your name, phone number and e-mail if you wish
   

• For Immediate Release in the upper left. This tells the editor that your information is time-sensitive. (Only in unusual circumstances does one “embargo” or restrict the timing of a news announcement; don’t bother with this.)
   

• Headline — keep to one line preferably but no more than two, centered; you can capitalize or boldface this but it’s not necessary
   

• Dateline — the relevant location and date of your release
   

• Body copy — three or maximum four brief factual paragraphs that fit on one page
   

• “Ender” – a symbol at the bottom of the page to indicate that there is no more copy.
   

• If they are truly vital to illustrating or enhancing your news, include a graph, professional-looking diagram or captioned photo with your release, but don’t let these do the job of your written information.

(Click on image to see illustration)

Many things have been left out of this recipe, and for good reason: they can compromise your credibility. The following should never make their way into a press release:

• Cleverness, puns or other fanciful wordplay.
   

• Technical jargon, unless citing the name of a product, someone’s title, or words used in a formal definition.
   

• Puffery and exaggeration. Avoid self-aggrandizing adjectives (“world-famous,” “most successful”; if you must cite the eminence of someone or something, use plain facts or statistics.
   

• Personal opinion. Unless quoting an expert other than yourself, do not inject personal opinion into a news release. This is known as editorializing (as are the bad adjectives mentioned above). Though the line between fact and opinion are blurred daily by some newspapers and t.v. news programs, a true professional adheres to journalistic standards.
   

• Jumbled text formatting. Using all caps, underlining, boldface or italics muddies your message. Italics or underlines may be used for publication names.

Once you know how to go about writing a news release, you can pay more attention to the cues that tell you when to write one. The following events call for prompt action:

• Important new hire at your company

• Important new client

• Forming a new business

• Expansion of services

• Relocation

• New product

• Giving a speech

• Winning an award

• Publishing a book

• Participation in a charity event

• Teaching a course

Good timing is paramount. Delaying action by only a few days can cost you important exposure. For instance: Calendars of events often have a cut-off point for submissions a week before publication. On the other hand, you don’t want to send a release too far in advance of a newsworthy event. If you know you will be giving a lecture three months from now, wait until about 10 days before the lecture to send a news release.

An exception to this might occur when an event planned for a distant future date calls for action on the reader’s part in the present, e.g., when a conference months away requires prospective participants to sign up soon. It can’t hurt to call the editor of a newspaper or magazine to find out the optimum time to send material.

Distribution of your release may seem like the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle, but in fact it requires planning from the beginning. You’ll need to think about appropriate media outlets for your news — newspapers and magazines that would be most interested in running your piece. It is counter-productive to send editors material that will not interest their readers. Not only will you have wasted your time and theirs, but the resulting ill will may sour future efforts to get their attention. This one principle can influence the outcome of much of your image-building public relations program.

In general, these are the types of publications that belong on your media list, which should be researched and revised with names and addresses of editors:

• In-house company newsletter

• Business press

• Trade press

• Technical press

• Affinity group publication

• Local-area news outlets (weeklies)

• Regional and national newspapers

• Alma mater (college bulletin)

Does this list mean you have to write eight different releases about the same news? No; rarely will one event fit into all these niches. But you can practice rewording your release slightly — especially the headline — so that it can go to two or three different media outlets. The more you personalize it to a given audience, the better chance you have of making it into print. The rest is up to the copy editors and proofreaders who polish and tighten everyone’s copy. You are the engineer, you have news, and they need to put out a newspaper. Sounds like a complete circuit to me!

Robin Peress is a freelance writer in Manhattan, N.Y. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.