Press releases

It is well-known that the media can make or break organisations. That's why more and more organisations are now taking the initiative: instead of simply responding to the journalists' enquiries (or, worse, refusing any comments at all), they are also trying to pro-actively manage the news about themselves. Good or bad, the media are effective tools for communicating an organization's priorities and accomplishments to the public. In this module we'll look at one such way of initiating coverage: viz. issuing press releases. Here are some of the questions that we'll try to answer in this module:

• The functions of press releases: Who can issue press releases? And why issue press releases?
• The topics of pres releases: What are press releases about?
• The structure of press releases: What do press releases look like?

We'll also introduce the central concept of preformulation.

Check out the example of a press release and what journalists have made of it in the right column.