Timing

You might want to time your event to catch the morning or evening news on a particular day. For newspapers, bear in mind that a lot of the news for one day’s edition is gathered on the day before. Radio and TV have shorter deadlines, but they often focus on immediate and developing stories, rather than pre-planned events. 

Alert the media in good time if you want them to use your story on a particular day. For an event, you’ll need to give a week’s notice. Send in your press release and make sure they have your contact numbers. About three days before the event, give them another call and make sure they have the details in the diary. 

If you don’t want your press release to be used in advance (to maintain an element of surprise or to coincide with an announcement), put an “embargo” at the top. An embargo specifies a time and date after which the story can be used, and by convention journalists should respect it. Suitable wording for this is: “EMBARGO: Not to be used before” and then state the time / date.