Everyone wants to be in their local newspaper, whether being interviewed for a story, photographed at a community festival or nonprofit event, asked a question for our People on the Street photos, competing in a game on our sports page or announcing a new business, wedding, birth or promotion. We’ll all be in the obituary section someday, but if your name is there, you’re not the one worrying about it. The only place people don’t want to be is in our police reports.
We investigate the inner workings of local and county governments, report on the successes, failures, tragedies and triumphs of our residents and hope to provide in-depth and breaking news so residents know what’s going on in the town they call home whether they are new or have been here for decades or generations, like we have.
Arts events, musical performances, nonprofit fundraisers and activities, school events, contests open to the public, awards and achievements earned by residents and stories that affect children, the elderly or the less fortunate make for great news items. The more people the story affects, the more likely it’s a good story for us to cover.
We can’t be everywhere, so we publish news from you, our readers. Knowing that not everyone is a media expert, we have press release guidelines pages on our two wesbites, journalaz.com and redrocknews.com. At the bottom, both include another link to a second page that offers tips on writing and formatting to readers who may be submitting their first press release so they can craft text to catch readers’ attention.
Email is the best method to send us information because we can put the text directly into our production queue without having to retype the release from a hardcopy or scrape a website for the requisite information.
Readers can email us press releases including the Five W’s: Who, what, when, where and why — as in “why should a reader want to attend?” — as well as “how” in case an attendee has to RSVP, register or pay admission.
When completed, send your press releases to us at editor@larsonnewspapers.com.
Press releases don’t need to be intimidating to write — a 100-word press release can be just as effective as a 500- word release. Include a photo or a mugshot of a speaker, if it applies, but make sure the photo is large, at least 1 megabyte, preferably at 200 to 300 dpi, otherwise they’re too small to print.
If you think a particular news story would be best covered by a particular reporter, their contact information can be found at the end of their individual stories in our print newspaper. My reporters are always looking for interesting stories, so I am often forwarding press releases to them for coverage. As the editor, I try to fit in every press release and photo sent to me, but my available space is limited. If I have 600 column inches of space in an edition, but 900 columns inches of copy and photos, not everything will get in.
Because we in the News Department are limited by the space available, we cannot guarantee where or when a press release will be published. If a release doesn’t appear, it may still be in our production queue for a later edition.
Don’t let that deter you from sending another in the future.
We prioritize events that are free, charge a nominal fee or benefit nonprofits, so if your for-profit event costs several hundred dollars, contact our Advertising Department at (928) 282-7795 and purchase a display ad.
If your particular event or activity absolutely must get in the paper and you’d prefer not to wait for the free press release to run, contact the Advertising Department and buy an ad. The ad runs for certain because it’s being paid for.
The press release may or may not also appear, depending on space available, and may run in earlier or later editions.
It will never run on the same page as the ad. If both the ad and press release run, you’ve reached our audience twice, but if the press release doesn’t, at least our thousands of readers have seen your event at least once.
The easiest way to guarantee I have more space in our newspapers is to buy regular ads. If we place more ads, we need more pages to put them on. If I have more pages, I can place more press releases, photos and news stories.
A wide-open 20-page newspaper has way more space for everyone’s content than an average 16- or tight 12-page newspaper.
The Sedona Red Rock News has been the small-town community newspaper of record covering Sedona for just over 60 years, since October 1963. We have published the Cottonwood Journal Extra, which goes to homes in Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Jerome and Cornville, for more than 38 years and The Camp Verde Journal for 44 years, serving readers in Camp Verde, Beaver Creek, Rimrock and Lake Montezuma. We share reporter-written news stories among all three editions and many press releases are published in all three if they’re relevant Verde Valley-wide, so keep that in mind when writing one.
For me and my staff, news isn’t just a job. Every story helps inform our residents about the goings-on in the community and the events, achievements and tragedies that happen to our neighbors. We produce them, but they chronicle the shared experiences of all of us.
