“Getting into the News”

April 24, 2009 whitneychilds

In class we discussed the aspects of the news (which could be an acronym for North,East, West and South)

Ms. Nixon began the class discussion by asking us what news meant to us. I defined news as information given about a certain topic whether it be about entertainment, politics, or informative, even actual facts, basically just information passed from one person to another enlightening a person about something new that grasps their interest.

Ms. Nixon then went on to say news needs to have three things: 1) be timely, 2) informative and 3) of interest to a particular group

Then we moved onto Press (News) Releases and discovered that Ivy Lee was known as the father of news releases.

A Press Release is a story you write with the intend of having it published in a mass media channel, newspapers, radio or Internet.

Reporters rely on press releases become they gather more information then share it with reporters and that saves time.

When writing a press release it is very important to write in Inverted Pyramid (from most important to least important information) because generally most people only read the first couple of paragraphs and just skim the rest.

When writing use the five W’s- Who, What, When, Where, Why and How

Media Kits-“Crest Kits” are major events your organization might have

The feature story is longer in length than a traditional story

We ended the class with a slide that read Die! Press Release! Die! and were told to Google if we were interested in knowing more. So you do the same!

Entry Filed under: Class Discussions

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