Writing an open letter to your local newspaper’s Opinion Pages is a great way to raise awareness of issues facing local nature.
Writing a letter to the letters page is one of the quickest and easiest ways to contact your local media. The letters page is one of the most read parts of a local newspaper. To enhance your chances of getting a letter printed it’s helpful to read previous letters to get a sense of the style they like to publish.
Keep it short (150 words maximum), make your message clear and simple, and put your most important point in the first sentence. If you can, relate your letter to a story the paper has covered, or a prominent local place or issue. Include your contact details!
If you want to do more than write to the letters page, here’s some tips that will help you sell your story and hit the headlines.
Learn the lingo: Find out what media covers your area and check what type of stories they cover before contacting them.
Get to know the right people: Look at which journalists cover what types of stories to decide who to contact. You can find their contact details on the website and most will be on social media.
Become a trusted contact: Local, reliable, and informed contacts are really important to local journalists, and you could be one of them. Think about building a relationship if you can. If you give lively, informative quotes that don’t exaggerate, they’ll more than likely stay in touch.
Social media offers the opportunity for instant updates and can be a very effective method of contacting journalists. Local media and journalists will be active on most social platforms, and it is an easy way for you to contact them with a story.
Good online contact with journalists requires short, precise and clear messages with easy links to more information. The easier it is for them to see the story, the more likely it is to get picked up.
A press release is a great way to get your story picked up. But make sure it’s clear and concise to get the attention of a busy journalist.
Try and grab the news editor’s attention in the first paragraph. You should aim to sum up your story in around 30 words and to answer the following questions: who, what, why, where, when?
Use a quote that can put across the concerns passionately and from an individual’s perspective, but don’t use formal language in a quote.
Create a headline to put at the top of the press release that is eye-catching and describes the story.
Include contact details at the end, including a daytime contact or email address and make sure you’re available to respond to enquiries.
Photos often sell a story. Bear in mind that any images for publication need to be digital and high resolution, 1MB or more.
Be topical and timely. The media often moves quickly on to the next big thing.
As with social media, when sending a press release remember this is from you as an individual or group of people who are passionate about nature. It has power because of that - please don't claim to speak on behalf of the RSPB or write that your release is an official RSPB communication.
