81% of journalists rely on press releases to source their news stories. With such a heavy reliance on a single medium, it's important to understand what to avoid when crafting an impactful press release. Medianet's in-house editorial team reads hundreds of press releases each week and even pitches almost half of them directly to journalists, hearing and responding to their feedback. These are the top 4 mistakes that journalists talk about when it comes to your press release.
Arguably, the headline of a press release is its most valuable real estate, so you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot by making stylistic choices that annoy journalists. Headlines written in ALL-CAPS or capitalising the first letter of every word (Title Caps) are to be avoided as they are an American style and not favoured by Australian media.
❌ (ALL-CAPS) MEDIANET’S NEW SURVEY SHOWS JOURNALISTS ARE AFRAID OF AI
❌ (Title Caps) Medianet’s New Survey Shows Journalists Are Afraid Of AI
✔️(First letter of first word and any proper nouns are capitalised) Medianet’s new survey shows journalists are afraid of AI
Acronyms, especially when used for an organisation’s name, are another major pet peeve for most journalists. The best practice is to write out an organisation’s name in full and include an acronym in brackets in the first sentence of the first paragraph, and try to avoid them or word around them in headlines completely.
The ABB welcomes the ABC’s advice on the ABD announcement.
Sourced from over five years worth of data from Medianet’s Australian Media Landscape Report, over 70% of journalists have consistently indicated that they don’t read past the first paragraph of a press release, so it is vital to use an inverted-pyramid structure to include the most important information first and not burying the most important angle in the last sentence of a press release.
Over 90% of journalists will use an image but only one third of press releases include an image. Using the Medianet platform, you can add related multimedia assets to your distribution at no additional cost. This adds impact and credibility to your message and increases the chances of it being noticed by journalists.
Also consider the media type you are pitching to and tailor your release with different forms of media suitable to that outlet. i.e. You can include video snips if pitching to a television program or audio snips for a radio station.
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