Media and The Message

by Nicholas G. Licata, M.A.

The Write Stuff [Back to Columns]

I once worked for a woman who told me that she was an "excellent" writer. She was a Ph.D., and I assumed that, while humility was not her strong point, she probably did write well. The first piece that we would work on together was a quarterly community newsletter. She would write most of the "important" information that we wanted this particular community to know. I would fill the letter with the interesting tidbits that would be useful to them and give them a reason to read the entire publication.

Well, it turned out that she was an excellent writer. After reading her pieces and applying a readability analysis to her work, I determined that she was writing at a 15th grade level. In other words, you had to be a junior in college, or at least as sophisticated, to understand a thing that she wrote. Most of our target audience had little or no education beyond high school. Fortunately, she accepted my criticism asking me to re-write the piece trying "not to dumb it down too much."

Understanding the people with whom you are trying to communicate and having the ability to tailor your writing accordingly are very important for anyone involved in public relations. It is no coincidence that many of us in the field of Public Relations started out in the world of journalism. Much of the work of public relations resides in creating awareness about a client, an issue, or a product. To that end, a lot of writing for publication in print or electronic media is involved.

Before you submit a press release, you must answer the questions an editor will ask. An editor will want to know if the information you are submitting is newsworthy. He will want to know if the information is appropriate for his readership. And, he will want to know if the information is accurate. If you can keep all of this in mind, you have a better likelihood of getting your subject matter covered in the desired publication.

With press releases, you get a break because once an editor decides to publish your issue, he or she will assign a reporter to research and re-write your press release. In this way, you will be assured of having your issue communicated to the readership in a way that they are comfortable with and will understand. Writing directly to an audience is a more delicate matter.