From the other side

Over the past few weeks, I've been COMPLETELY bogged down by The Colonnade. Working with the 'nade has helped not only helped my copy editing (and hopefully my writing) but also parts of my work as a public relations major.

I receive press releases from organizations out the wazoo! Some I read in depth, but for the most part, I have to discard them. No one has enough time to go through the releases word for word unless something is attention grabbing in the lead or at least in the first paragraph.

In order for me to look at the release and consider it for a story, it needs to have relevance to GCSU or close to campus, in the title or lead. Our primary audience is the student and population here in town. It would be unnecessary for us to run a story based far off campus, none of our readers would want to read it!

Almost 100 percent of the releases we get are by e-mail. If the subject line of the e-mail is too vague or there is no subject (horrible!), then I usually don't bother to read them and assume they are junk mail.

Going through countless press releases has helped me understand why some are picked up and why others are not. Don't make your reader have to work for the information. If you perfect the release to show the media you are attempting to pick it that the information pertains to their primary audience, the media will be more inclined to print the release, or at least create a story out of it.