PR types struggling to get their news releases read should take heed to this New York Times report about the magic words that best pique a journalist’s interest.
Strategic word selection can catapult an announcement about a study, a product or a “breakthrough” onto the evening news instead of to its usual destination — the spam folder or circular file.
“P.R. people want to invest time in things that are going to get picked up, so they try to put something to the ‘who cares?’ and ‘so what?’ test,” said Kate Robins, a longtime public relations consultant. “If you say something is first, most, fastest, tallest — that’s likely to get attention. If you can use the words like ‘money,’ ‘fat,’ ‘cancer’ or ‘sex,’ you’re likely to get some ink in the general audience media.”
Good to know.
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Now playing: Patti Smith – Free Money
via FoxyTunes
You got that right. I’ve been paying for Lonely Girl 15 for almost two years.
Maybe I should just go the opposite direction and do a blog on the fact that Lonely Girl 15 had sex first and fastest with the tallest people, then got fat, was diagnosed with cancer and was cured by the miracle of money. (Kate forgot the word “miracle.” )
Dennis – I suspect your comments will result in a spike in traffic to this blog. Thanks!
And isn’t a spike in traffic what we all really want anyway…