Working on your professional portfolio is no joke. As a public relations student, I learned nine main public relations writing formats this semester that I think are worth knowing. I’ve been working on drafting, and proofreading, writing samples for each of the nine types listed below. While there are more format types out there, here is my list of what I specifically worked on this semester in public relations writing.
News Release
What is it? The news release is used to help entice the media to write a story about your newsworthy event.
The goal is to provide as much information as possible and make your story easy to read. You’ll have your header, body, and boilerplate included in the document. Types? There are a couple of them, like feature releases and spot releases. See next *wink*
Spot News Release
Also known as the crisis release. You send this out to fill in the facts of a crisis as soon as they become available. The big thing is that you’ll want to include quotes from the higher-ups, i.e., the CEO of your organization or company. The format is the same as the news release. Although, your release date will differ.
Media Advisory
A media advisory notifies the media of an upcoming event opportunity for them to visit or attend. Now, I’ve been making sure to include COVID-19 safety guidelines. The media advisory is a short release format that has an emphasis on the 5Ws. Additionally, you’ll want to include parking and details specific to the media.
Pitch
This is a proposal to a media outlet that “sells” your story idea. We’ve been writing our pitches as an email message. That means having your greeting/salutations, the body, and the closing conclusion.
Feature Story
The feature story is a 600-1,000 word story written in a journalist format, like a newspaper article. You want to make sure it has a relevant story angle. For my class, we’ve needed to include photographs and quotes from at least two other people.
Video News Release
Known as a VNR, a video news release is a public relations tactic that appears on T.V. as a regular news story. While I learned about providing b-roll, audio, video, and other items in the news package, all we are doing for the VNR is writing out a script with three columns. The first has the duration of what you are seeing and hearing in seconds, your vision (what you’ll see on your T.V. screen,) and audio (what you’ll listen to.)
Public Service Announcements
Public Service Announcements, or PSAs, are general interest messages where the objective is to change public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue. We’ve been writing more PSA “scripts” that are 15 or 30 seconds long. In my opinion, VNRs and PSAs are the easiest and quickest to write.
Fact Sheet
This is a public relations format used to concisely summarize an organization, news item, issue, or cause. You use this to entice a journalist to write about a subject or offer context for a news release.
Backgrounder
The backgrounder is a public relations format used to tell the story or the “background” of an issue or organization. It may also include a more explicit persuasive argument. Currently, the backgrounder and fact sheet has been the more intricate PR writing assignments we’ve had to complete.
Happy Public Relations Writing!
Lydia