DELIVERABLE #3: NEWS RELEASE
Usint the cole et al. study or National Assessment of the Perceived Writing Skils of Entry-Level PR Practitioners.
Purpose: To prepare a hard-news news release, using proper standard news release formatting, inverted pyramid structure and AP writing style. Although this deliverable is considered your “first draft,” the news release you submit to me should be the product of your best abilities. You, as the assistant account executive, should feel confident sending it to your direct boss (me) and your client contact for review.
The Set-Up: Imagine once again that you are still an assistant account executive at ACME Public Relations. As you may remember, your client, the Commission on Public Relations Education, recently updated the standard materials included in its media kits. These materials will also be published on CPRE’s website (see http://www.commpred.org). You worked up a backgrounder/position paper (Deliverable #2) for this media kit.
That backgrounder complements and contextualizes the news release you must now write that announces the findings of the Cole et al. study.
NOTE: Remember, the conceit is that CPRE funded the Cole et al. study, which it actually did not. PRSA did in part. We are also assuming that the Cole et al. study is about to be released, hence the need for the news release. And obviously, the study came out in 2009 and it’s now 2014. So feel free to fudge the timing as you need to.
Execution of tasks: Between the copious lecture notes and readings, as well as the optional but highly recommended discussion forum related to this deliverable, you should be more than ready to tackle this news release.
· I highly recommend that students participate in the optional Outlining the News Release discussion forum, open during Week 6. Please see the discussion area for this forum. You’ll be asked to sketch out an outline of your news release. Feedback will be provided on your outline (to make sure you are on track before you commit time and effort to the actual writing of the news release), with enough time for you to incorporate this feedback into your news release.
My Expectations: Your news release will:
1. Be in standardized news release format – follow the model provided on p. 15 of the Weeks 6/7 lecture notes.
2. Use inverted pyramid structure, with a straight summary lead.
3. Contain at least two quotes.
a. Quotes can either be:
i. crafted by you or
ii. cribbed from an actual source.
iii. Please indicate where this source (even if it’s you) came from on a separate sheet of paper, attached to your news release.
b. At least one quote must be attributed to a real person at CPRE.
c. Other quotes may be attributed to a real or fictional person at CPRE or another organization that is logically involved with this study or its subject matter. This should be someone whose name or position carries some weight.
4. Use New York City as the dateline locale. But this is tricky – check out the AP stylebook about how to format NYC in datelines and in text.
5. You may use CPRE’s actual boilerplate. Cut-and-paste from any of CPRE’s own news releases found at http://www.commpred.org/news/. Exercise your PR judgment: If the boilerplate mentions another study by CPRE, is that the correct information to include in the boilerplate for your news release, which is about a completely different study (fictionally funded by CPRE)? Also, do the verb tenses sound right? Hmmm…
6. Be written in AP style and organized using the inverted pyramid structure.
7. Should be on CPRE letterhead:
a. We are trying to approximate a real-world scenario, thus all public relations materials would be distributed to the media on CPRE letterhead.
b. Please cut-and-paste the graphic below into the top of the first page of your news release only (not the cover page of your deliverable or additional pages of the release). Most organizations use the more expensive graphical letterhead for the first page and plain letterhead paper for additional pages.
8. Be in final form (even though it’s considered an ungraded first draft for the purposes of this course).
What’s my endgame with this piece?
· Your operational goal is, of course, to write an engaging, well-written and well-organized/structured news release that recipients will appreciate.
· Your mission goal is for this news release to generate contact from members of the media and to parlay that contact into media coverage of CPRE, this study and/or the broader subject matter of writing issues in the U.S.
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