Today I want to take a closer look at the inverted pyramid. I know that we briefly looked at it in a previous class, but I'd like to hone in a bit in this video and talk about the usefulness of this writing style for public relations. The inverted pyramid is a principal borrowed from journalism. It helps PR practitioners to write in a way that helps readers gain the most important knowledge first. This style lets readers quickly skim through written content, absorbed the elements that appeal to them, and decide to continue reading the article or not. The idea here is that people do not have a lot of time on their hands, so this style of writing presents the most valuable information right when they come across a story. It is based on ideas or notions that a journalist has, but rather it brings out the bare facts that readers must know. I didn't include the headline in my depiction of the inverted pyramid here, but a headline is just as much part of the story as the lead or the body. PR practitioners, sometimes write corny or cliche headlines and this should be avoided. Instead, your headline should be informative. The headline should tell the reader what the story is about. The headline in the lead paragraph are the most important parts of the inverted pyramid and of your press release news story. The lead paragraph summarizes the story and should answer the five Ws, who, what, when, where, why, and include the how too. If a reader stopped reading after the first paragraph, the idea here is that they'd have the basics of the news story. For PR practitioners, the way you frame the first paragraph is so important. We've talked about objectivity before a news framing, and PR is part of that news making process. We can have the influence on how a story is told. Our press release can help in the framing of the story. Here is an example of a news story on CBS Sports back in October of 2016. The NFL has had a long history of scandals with players participating in domestic violence. On your screen is one way of framing this story. Take a few minutes and read these paragraphs. On your screen now is the same story from the Washington Post, just a different frame that is used here. Take a minute and read this story. You can see that these two stories are the same, but also very different. How the frame defines the problem is important, and who the frame suggest should solve the problem is also important. We won't go into the theoretical underpinnings of framing, but this is ultimately where PR can have influence. This is also perhaps why I do not believe news as objective. Frames help us to connect with the story. Journalists choose the frames that will resonate the most with audiences. This stresses the importance in knowing your audience and understanding what types of messaging will attract them because remember, we want audiences to "tune in" and think about what we are saying. That's when their cognitive resources are being used and it's more likely that our message will then be remembered. So we needed to tell stories in a way that will connect with and move our audience in some way. That could be awareness, attitude change, behavior change, etc. The body is the rest of the story or the remaining paragraphs in the news release. The body is the part that gives the details of timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, human interests, and conflict. The information here is thought to be less important to the purpose or the main point of the story. You want to continue with the news from the first paragraph, but just trickle the background information in. Avoid devoting the entire second paragraph to background information. The body includes transitions and quotations. Writer should have three goals when writing transitions; to add information, to explain, or to help the flow of the story. In the body of the press release, writer should alternate between quotations and transitions. I like to use quotes as transitions. In the news or in journalism, journalists interview sources and get a quote while in PR, since we are the communication experts, we often write our own quotes, but of course we gain permission. We might write a quote for the president of the company or the Chief Marketing Officer. The reason we would write their quote is because we are using it in support of our promotional news story. A PR practitioner should be an expert in crafting a good quote. We also need to end the news story. Indeed, the news story well, is important because it helps to reinforce the central point of the story and can leave a lasting impression in readers minds. Sometimes the kicker or the ending of the story is just as important as the lead. You don't want to end with a quote, you want to end with the news, remind people what's important. Lastly, and this is my own edition to the inverted pyramid, is the boilerplate. PR practitioners include this on every press release, its standardize, and it's often the exact same paragraph. This boilerplate is a one paragraph summary or like an about us. It tells the reader all of the high level important information about a brand or company and includes the contact information, so like the brand's website, address, or phone number. A lot of people ignore the importance of the boilerplate. Boilerplates matter to your brand, to the journalist, to consumers. You should have your boilerplate done first, even before you write the press release. You want to end the boilerplate with a call to action, and that could be your brand's contact information or some kind of directive. The boilerplate is part of your brand and is attached to the brand reputation, so it really should be something you get right. You're company's tagline or logo should be on the press release. The boilerplate should include background information on your company and or industry awards, honors or recognition, these help with credibility. Journalists are critics. This boilerplate is part of your pitch, whether you realize it or not. You also want to include impressive metrics about successes of your brand. Here are a few examples of boilerplates; first, here's Lululemon's boilerplate. The first sentence tells you what the brand is and what it's about. The next sentence talks about the unique positioning of the brand. Lastly is the website. Notice that this boilerplate is only two sentences. Next is Netflix boilerplate. The first sentence is what the brand is. The second and third is the unique positioning. You can see that the boilerplate is short and concise. You can say a lot in just 2-3 sentences. To close out this video on the inverted pyramid, I wanted to leave you with a few final thoughts. Since a press release is only one page, you don't have a lot of space to be elaborate in your storytelling. You want to write the press release in a way that helps a journalist visualize the framing of the story and to decide if the story is newsworthy for his or her readers. You are the narrator of the story, so write the press release like a news story. Use the journalist format and the inverted pyramid, include credible sources and quotations. The journalist will buy it if that story meets his readers needs. Think about that as you begin crafting the story that you're telling with your brands news. Lastly, I would encourage you to consume the type of media you are pitching. If you pitch a lot of traditional media, I'd be reading those sources; The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and so on. You can learn so much just by being an avid consumer of news. You can see how stories are written, what angles or frames journalists use, the sources selected, the hook, the lead, transitions, everything. You will mimic this style in your press release writing. Remember, we're trying to be useful to journalist. We want to pitch them a story that's perfect for their beat, hand them over research and sources, then be of assistance to the journalist as they make the news. Over time when a journalist learns that you are good at your job, your relationship begins to develop. Later on, a time might come where your brand is in parallel. The relationship you have with a journalist could be leveraged so that their news story includes your brand's perspective. So the working relationship is part of a long-term effort at stewardship.
