Newsrooms have fewer people than they did five years ago and more material arriving every hour. Press releases built on a survey of a thousand people still land in the inbox, and most of them are deleted unread. The ones that get picked up share a few habits.
The method is in the first paragraph
A journalist cannot run a number they cannot explain. Who was asked, how many, when, and by whom. If that takes a phone call to find out, the story goes to the bottom of the pile. Put it at the top of the release and in the first paragraph of the report.
The finding is new, or the angle is
Most datasets confirm what people already assume. That is fine for a report; it is not a story. Look for the result that surprised you in the analysis. If nothing did, look for the local angle, the comparison between two groups, or the change since the last time anyone measured it.
Charts come ready to publish
- One clear chart per finding, with the source and the sample size on the image itself
- Data available as a downloadable table, not only as a PDF
- Numbers rounded sensibly in the text, exact in the table
Someone is available to talk
A quote in the release is not the same as a researcher who will take a call the same afternoon. The stories that run are the ones where the journalist could ask a follow-up question and get an answer before the deadline.
What we do about it
At KRAKUM we start every project with the method note, because it is the thing a desk editor asks for first. Then we write the story, build the charts, and pitch it to the journalists who cover that subject. The researchers stay in the byline. We stay in the background.