The Triumph Classic Public Relations Series. The Nature of News.

Understand the nature of news in order to be newsworthy and get the sort of coverage you desire. As you strive to Get Noticed, your public relations effort will employ many tactics. You use social media, you write search-engine optimized (SEO) blogs and website copy, and you integrate all of this with your marketing and advertising efforts.

But the old school has always and will always get the best results. You can write optimized blogs until you are slap happy but there is no substitute for a good article in a reputable, widely-read newspaper, magazine, or journal. That helps gain attention, which often feeds additional media interest.

The best way to accomplish this is to be newsworthy. The news has elements to it, and if your business has a story that has some of these elements, you may be able to gain a reporter’s interest. These elements include, but are not limited to the following.

1. Conflict. If the story features a struggle between individuals, businesses, governments, or other institutions, it will attract a reporter’s interest.
2. Timeliness. Unless it is a feature article, news must be very recent and fresh.
3. Proximity. Local reporters always look for local relevance to national or international stories. Offer them a local tie to a national story.
4. Prominence. It could be a story if it involves or is connected to a famous or notorious person or institution.
5. Significance. What impact will it have? The more people that are impacted, the greater value the story.
6. Romance or adventure. As a human interest feature, it is a good idea to highlight unusual or interesting things that people in your organization do.
7. Sex. It really does sell newspapers. On televised news, you don’t have to wait long to see it, usually with pictures or footage under the pretext of being shocked or outraged by it.
8. Progress. Does the story continue with additional developments?
9. Bizarre. Unusual, unexpected, or freakish will move a story to the front page.
10. Currency. If it is an idea whose time has come, the matter will assume a life of its own. It will gain momentum in the media.
11. Human interest. This is an opportunity to highlight difference. It is a compelling side to someone’s personal story.

Anything that you write that is placed in a place under your control, such as your website, your Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc. can say what you want. However, if you are looking for news coverage, the more of these elements the story has, the greater probability that you will gain the coverage. A qualified public relations firm can help.