New Press Release Format to Ponder

I met with a friend and local journalist the other day. As we do, we discussed business (for both parties), interestingly; she mentioned that journalists today are moving to different formats for press releases…

What is this new press release format?

Bullet-points. A simple bulleted list of who, what, when, where, why and how (yes- those same techniques we learned in school, now with a twist).

Her reason?

She said that each day journalists get so many press releases all they do is scan them and the easiest way to do that is with bullet-points. So often times, PR companies go to great lengths to get quotes and write lavish press releases. In reality, journalists rewrite the story and most newspapers require their journalists to get their own quote for the story.

So, if you insist on using the standard press release format, try writing simple bulleted list of the “5 Ws” before the rest of the release to help the journalist scan and then continue reading if they choose.

Remember, we want to make their life as easy as possible!