As we learned in Chapter 3, agencies often provide public relations (PR) services as well as advertising. PR communication is a two-step process. First you must send or release your news item to the press using a document called a press release. Members of the press or anyone with access to a large group of readers, listeners, viewers (editors, journalists, podcasters, bloggers, etc.) are gatekeepers they get to decide which information to pass along to their audience.

For this assignment, after reviewing the article Press Release 101, you will write a 1-page press release to announce a new product. This can be a real or fictitious product, but you are going to learn to think using this two-step PR process.

• First, select a company or brand and imagine a new product or innovation they want to announce.
• Who is the end consumer target for this product?
• Research that consumer using the database tools provided.
• What types of media do these consumers read, view or listen to?
• Select a target media perhaps you want consumers learn about his new product on a local news TV station.
• Write a press release as if you are going to send it to that TV station. Your goal is that the editor of that news broadcast will find your information interesting and mention it on air.

Your grade for the Press Release assignment will be based upon four criteria: format, content, writing style, and use of appropriate language:

1. Format:
   • Must follow the Associated Press Stylebook guidelines, as presented in the Week 2 Learning Module
2. Content:
   • Provides relevant information to the media.
   • Answering who, what, when, where, and why.
   • Properly ordering and sourcing information in the body of the release.
3. Writing style:
   • Headline and subhead, paragraph structure.
   • Straight-forward, concise news style.
4. Appropriate Language:
   • Lack of clichs, jargon, marketing hype etc.
   • Tone of language should be appropriate to the topic or issue.