Boy Scouts of America® Western Massachusetts Council

Public Relations

A Guide to Press Releases

A news release is the most common of all public relations tools. News releases should communicate key information — the who, what, when, where, why, and how of an event or issue — and contact information to reporters and editors in the news media. Reporters and editors receive thousands of news releases a week, and they look for accuracy, clarity, brevity, timeliness, and newsworthiness to determine what they will feature in the news. A newsworthy release can be described as one that appeals to the broadest audience and offers the most information with the greatest sense of urgency. In most cases, reporters or editors will rewrite your release to fit their style, so it’s crucial to present the information as clearly and accurately as possible. The best way to do this is by following the journalistic method of organizing the material into an inverted pyramid. The inverted pyramid style of writing puts the most essential information at the beginning, followed by items of decreasing importance.