Is it newsworthy?
Individual journalists, editors and producers will ultimately determine if your story is newsworthy according to what other stories are around on the day. But as a general guide, a newsworthy story is something that could be:
- New
- Controversial
- Spectacular
- humorous
- Quirky
- Different
- Unjust
- something someone else doesn’t want you to know
Pitching your story to media
- Ensure that your media release or media alert is concise and jargon free, covering ’who, what, when, where, how and why’.
- Ensure that you are sending your media release or media alert to the correct person.
- Personalise your media release or media alert, and after emailing, faxing or posting it, follow it up with the addressee to ensure that they have received it – thus giving you a chance to further ‘talk up’ your story.
- If it’s print media, make sure you can provide a good photo opportunity - or provide professional photos with the release.
- If it’s radio, make sure you’ve offered media savvy interviewees for interview
- If it’s television, make sure you’ve offered filming opportunities for moving images to accompany the story, or provide them on DVD for the program’s use.
- Don’t try to pitch a weak non-newsworthy story to a journalist, even to a friend, because you’ll lose credibility in their eyes for next time. Besides, no professional journalist will risk his or her reputation pushing a story with no legs.
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