+44-7967507187

At a recent MediaTrain workshop in Manila, participants discussed and practised how to write Press Releases that have impact. One of the examples they worked on is below, an Oxfam/Save the Children press release about the East African drought.

We all agreed that the closer a Press Release comes to looking and sounding like a news story, the better chance it stands of being used and making impact.

We agreed a basic framework for a Press Release that included a snappy headline, attention-grabbing introductory first para of no more than 35 words, and a quote, preferably a telling one, in the second or third paragraph.

Look at the Guardian story in the link below to see how the Press Release intro gets replicated, almost, in the newspaper story.

But look also at the quotes by Barbara Stocking and Justin Forsyth in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the release, and ask yourself: how much more impact would this have made if the quotes, which have drama and controversy, were in the second or third paragraph?

And how much more impact would these statements have made on the Guardian writer if they had been presented a little closer to the headline which they support and illustrate? In the newspaper story they are consigned to the 11th paragraph, way too low down the story to make the impact they deserve. 

Headline, intro, quote: the Manila workshop participants agreed, that was the way to make a splash.

                                                      .   .   .   .   .

Thousands of lives and millions of pounds lost due to late response to food crisis in East Africa

January 18th, 2012 at 12.34 am.

Lessons learnt can help prevent future disasters and save lives

Thousands of needless deaths occurred and millions of extra pounds were spent because the international community failed to take decisive action on early warnings of a hunger crisis in East Africa, according to a new report by the international aid agencies Oxfam and Save the Children.

The report, A Dangerous Delay, says a culture of risk aversion caused a six month delay in the large-scale aid effort because humanitarian agencies and national governments were too slow to scale up their response to the crisis, and many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one.

Sophisticated early warning systems first forecast a likely emergency as early as August 2010 but the full-scale response was not launched until July 2011 when malnutrition rates in parts of the region had gone far beyond the emergency threshold and there was high profile media coverage of the crisis.

Save the Children and Oxfam say more funding for food emergencies should be sought and released as soon as the crisis signs are clear, rather than the current system which funds large-scale emergency work only when hunger levels have reached tipping-point – by this time lives have already been lost and the cost of the response is much greater. The agencies are calling on governments to overhaul their response to food crises, as laid out in the Charter to End Extreme Hunger, a document that has already received backing from key international figures.

“We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in East Africa and need to learn the lessons of the late response,” said Oxfam’s Chief Executive, Barbara Stocking. “It’s shocking that the poorest people are still bearing the brunt of a failure to respond swiftly and decisively. We know that acting early saves lives but collective risk aversion meant aid agencies were reluctant to spend money until they were certain there was a crisis.”

“We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue; where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children.” said Save the Children’s Chief Executive, Justin Forsyth. “The warning signs were clear and with more money when it really mattered, the suffering of thousands of children would have been avoided. All governments should sign the Charter to End Extreme Hunger to help ensure a crisis like this can never happen again.” 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/18/east-africa-drought-disaster-report?INTCMP=SRCH

Andy Hill, MediaTrain

Share This