Madrigal Communications, a Sydney-based communications consultant, helps organisations improve the value of their written and online communications. The agency is comprised of a team of experienced writers with high-level business and communication skills to help clients win new businesses.

At a PR conference last week, we got a chance to meet Tim Entwisle, Director of Madrigal Communications. Tim has an impressive background and extensive experience in the marketing communications industry, and was kind enough to share his approach for writing a media release that garners the media’s attention.

“Most people can write but writing a media release requires you to follow a few fundamental principles. Essentially, you have a limited opportunity to convince journalists that your media release is of a quality that is worth publishing”,he said.

He further explains, “Don’t give in to the temptation of creating an exaggerated story that is not credible or is transparently self-serving. Value your readers’ time and attention by writing a factual and interesting media release”.

When asked about the most common mistakes people make when writing media releases, Tim also shared his long experience with us.

“Nothing makes journalists transfer your media release straight to spam than a poorly structured narrative. Make sure that the content conforms to the reverse pyramid format—the first sentence and paragraph have to summarise the story and then each following paragraph is written from most important detail to least. If your don’t follow this formula then the journalist has too much to do to get it into the right shape for the newspaper or other publishing channel.”.

“Always remember the ‘golden rule’ of answering the When, What, Where, How and Why in the first paragraph of a media release”.

He also emphasised that many writers make the mistake of writing in the first person. A media release is similar to other journalism pieces and, therefore, should be written objectively in the third person.

Visit website here: https://madrigal.com.au/services/media-releases/