What is newsworthy?

Determining what is news and what’s not is the key to effective and results-oriented public relations.

A press story must be of genuine interest, if it lacks real news value journalists will simply bin it! Proper targeting of press material is crucial. No matter how well it is written if it is not accurately targeted it will be discarded wasting the considerable effort that has gone into producing it.

Newsworthy stories may be one or more of the following:

• Survey results
• New product launches
• Staff appointments or promotions
• Store openings
• Award wins or nominations
• Fundraising achievements or charity tie-ups
• New product innovations/launches
• Human-interest stories
• Expansion of premises
• Opening after refurbishment
• Unusual product application story
• Celebration of sales targets achieved

Identifying the ‘peg’ to hang it all on is often the key to success eg. a link with dedicated and associated national weeks eg. ‘Walk To School’ week or ‘National No Smoking Day’ etc. can make for meaty, topical stories.