How To Get Your News Story Noticed By Journalists

You’ve got a news story? Great, now for the hard part – how to get your news story noticed by journalists.

Today, there are many ways to get your news out there and noticed. Press release distribution services are easy to use and offer up the opportunity for reaching many thousands of contacts at the touch of a button. The trouble, however, is that they don’t necessarily screen or check the news announcement itself to see whether it will be of interest to the media.

Also, many press release distribution services don’t allow for the chance to build relations with journalists. The long and the short of it is that you could be left with a gaping hole in your budget – you’ve spent money on pushing a press release out there and waited, waited, waited but no coverage has resulted and you don’t have any idea why.

I’m not against press release distribution services themselves, I’m just against them being used in the wrong way. Of course, you could just as easily send your press release off to named journalists directly and not hear back. It can be pretty frustrating all round really, can’t it?

So, how do you get your news story noticed by journalists?

Well, the answer might surprise you. It’s not about your writing style, knowing how to put together a press release, or taking the journalist out for a slap up meal. Yes, connections are great but if your story doesn’t tick their boxes for what they want, and have real ‘news’ value, then it won’t matter how well you know them.

How to get your news story noticed by journalists starts with asking: what is the news value in the story? News value trumps everything else yet it’s the most tricky part for people to get their head around. The challenge lies in understanding what makes a news story and trying to step away from going down that route of just promoting the business with a sales pitch. Yes, of course, you want to get your business featured in the media but this is not advertising so don’t treat it as if it is.

There are certain things a journalist looks for in a news story – let’s call them ‘ingredients’. The more of these ‘ingredients’ you can put into your news story then the more interesting it will be for the journalist and the easier it will be for them to use it. And, if the ‘ingredients’ aren’t obvious then you need to do some digging to find them so that they are.

So, what is the key news ‘ingredient’ that will interest journalists?

Human interest has to be at the heart of your story. People, the impact of your news story on them, and how it changes their lives, is one of the key ‘ingredients’. So, a business expanding is great news but if you can include the number of new jobs it creates, and where, then that is much more interesting for a journalist.

The launch of a new widget is all well and good but that in itself is not particularly interesting, or newsworthy. The impact of that widget is what will be of interest, for example, cutting fuel costs, improving health, saving time spent shopping, improving security.

Of course, you could pay for any number of services to get your press release published on other websites if back links are what you are after. But, if you want to get journalists interested then you have to filter what makes it through to the press release stage, unearth the real news value and ensure that human interest is central. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what else you do because your press release won’t be of interest to, or noticed by, journalists.

In a nutshell: Focus on human interest in your news stories – people, their role and the impact of the news on them.

What’s the human interest angle in your next news story?

How To Get Your News Story Noticed By Journalists