Ready-To-Use News
Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 02:21PM 
On Newsworthy we throw the term “print ready” around quite a bit. Today, I’ll take a few minutes to discuss exactly what it means to be print ready.
If a press release is print ready, it is basically a stand alone news story that could appear in a periodical in its unedited form. It’s important for press releases to be print ready because nowadays, news is syndicated to websites automatically – without input from editors.
OK, so the term itself is a bit of a misnomer... it should probably be “web ready” instead of “print ready.” After all, press releases are much more likely to appear on a website in their original form than in a newspaper. Newspapers have space constraints, and editors need to work around these limitations. The odds of your news appearing on news websites “as is” are quite good, and getting better every day.
For example, the Times Union, a newspaper in our backyard in Albany, NY, subscribes to many of our news feeds and posts press releases on their website automatically. Here’s a link to their custom New York State Agencies news feed under the politics section of their website.
The Times Union’s feeds (and others like it) are a perfect example of why your news releases need to be print ready. Any media outlet can link to your stories or host your press releases online. However, in order for them to do it regularly, you’ll need to prove to the media that you are a reliable source of high-quality news.
This means more than just regularly announcing important events and goings-on at your organization. It means you should write news stories instead of press releases. If your news can’t go directly from an editor’s inbox to a web page you’re doing your organization a disservice.
Write objective news stories that accomplish your goals but sound like they could have come from an unbiased reporter. Always be honest and try to relate your topic to a specific audience.
Assemble a news story that looks and feels at home on a web page. Format your releases so that they’re attractive to online readers. They should look and read like modern online news stories.
In the coming weeks I’ll dig deeper and discuss a few things you can do to format your news for online publications, so keep your eyes peeled.
