Mastering the craft of creating effective news alerts – also known as media/news advisories or media releases – is critical for PR professionals. These one-page announcements of upcoming events for journalists – typically mailed or distributed via wire services like the Associated Press – are an opportunity to communicate your clients’ story and demonstrate how they’re impacting their community.
The key to success is in understanding how to write and deliver the five W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why. These are the details that make a newsworthy event relevant to your audience. It’s also important to clearly convey what your client is asking or attempting and why they want to do it, as this can be a significant factor in getting audiences to care.
Breaking news alerts are immediately disseminated to capture audiences during a dramatic and/or urgent event, such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. These are generally more sensational and require a higher level of accuracy in order to be credible, so it’s critical to balance speed with fact checking.
All alerts and releases should provide contact information for at least one person from your organization who can be reached for follow-up questions. This is especially important for breaking news alerts, which can often raise ethical concerns about sensationalism and misinformation. It’s also helpful to include a link or image to any supporting materials, such as videos and photos. This will help reporters understand what they need to do in order to get the full picture of your newsworthy event.