Hey guys,
I work for a local newspaper in the UK, and I couldn't sleep last night, so I've done a bit of thinking. I hope the following information/ideas are useful to you.
1) Journalists don't really like form press releases.
We're too used to being bombarded with them - PR agencies send them out willy-nilly with no real understanding of the publication they're sending them to, or if they're really newsworthy. For a story, we need a 'hook', or an angle, or a local link.
I'd suggest penning a 'bank' of four or five different submissions or releases (hey, you've got a lot of people wanting to help. give them the chance), on various themes (some ideas below), illustrated with quotes from different players and people, and with a selection of different photographs that can be attached. That way each news outlet would feel they are getting something that only they have, but with minimal effort on our part.
2) Journalists are overworked and underpaid.
My newsroom produces four newspapers each week, and has only four full-time reporters. Anything that lightens our load is a godsend. A well-written story that appears to be original - something that none of my competitors will have, a new angle on a story or an issue - will always get the edge.
3) Information:
We don't have the time to research like we used to - while google and wikipedia is our friend, if we've got some editors notes at the end of a release or submission, it will help us to pad out the story. For example: What /is/ City of Heroes? When was it made, who made it? How many people play it? When is it due to close? How can people join in the campaign. Stick that in bullet points at the end of the submission or release and it makes our lives easier. If our lives are easier, we're more likely to run it.
4) Length:
My newspaper flat out never runs an article that's more than 500 words long. Print is expensive and online people don't have the attention spans to read reams of words. Keep it as short as possible. You don't have to say everything at once.
5) Contact details
You probably think your press release or submission has all the information needed in it. It won't. You might know what a level 50 fully-IO'd- DB/SR stalker is, but overworked journalist in the newsroom doesn't. Always add contact details so they can contact you for clarification or more information.
6) Quotes:
I'd suggest a forum post is set up for soundbites. How many times have you read the same story over and over again with the same quotes from the same people, but on four different newsites? That's because they've come from a press release. So set up a database of quotes from our players that whoever does the press releases can dip into, adding new ones to each release they send out. Don't go overboard. There won't be enough room for 8,000 word essays, something like:
Jane Smith, who has been playing the game for (x) years as her alter-ego, The Masked Angel said: "This has been a real body blow to me. I've spent eight years in this game and I just don't know what I'll do without it."
John Doe, known in-game as villain Death Majestic said: "The news was a massive shock, and upset so many people, but we're determined to do all we can to fight this closure."
We just need people so give their (or 'a') real world name, the name of their toon, how long they've been playing and a couple of concise sentences (no more than three, really) about the closure.
Make the news sites think they're getting something no-one else has.
7) Follow ups: Don't let them run a story once and then forget about us. Sure, don't bombard them with emails, but after the initial story, give us another one in two weeks time - how is the campaign going? What's changed since the last story? Petition up to 50,000? Natalie Portman and Mercedes Lacky signed up to help us? Got '#SaveCoH' trending on Twitter? Unity Rally attract so many people we crashed the server? Make sure we know. Make sure we follow the campaign to the very end.
Pix please. Screenshots, photographs - protests, vigils, sit-ins, players. Anything less than 1 meg in size can't be relicated in print very well, so make sure they're of a decent quality. Again, if possible, provide different outlets with different images, so in each place the articles look fresh and different.
9) Research carefully. Don't blanket send press releases - for example, if Newspaper 1 and Newspaper2 are two different titles, but in the same office, don't send the release to both of them, just the one. It sounds stupid but a) it really annoys journalists, we like to feel special and b) it means they'll know it's a 'form' press release, which means it'll have gone to their competitors and a dozen other outlets. News..well, the clue is in the name. It has to be NEW.
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Hooks I've thought of so far.
1) Local news outlets need local stories.
Look at any newstory from a local outlet and you can bet that within two paragraphs they've got the name of the town in there, so people think 'wow, this affects me'.
CoH ..is a little hard to find local links to, unless you're doing something about it, so you'd need to do something to get there attention ("A man from Randomtown has chained himself to a video game store to protest the end of his virtual world..") The more off the wall, the better, as it's more likely to get picked up by national news outlets, who love to point and laugh at the silly people in Nowheresville. If you're not prepared to do something attention seeking to get coverage, you need to go for the heartstrings. Did you meet your partner in game? Did CoX save your life? Have you been left reeling, devastated and without your only social life because you're housebound or unwell? THAT your local news outlet will be interested in.
2) HAHAHAHA look at the funny nerds
OK, we get it. We run around in a virtual environment pretending to be superheroes. We're not the coolest person in the world. So it'll be freaking hilarious if a bunch of basement dwellers who never go out in the real world dress up in superhero costumes to protest the closure of their silly little game. Aren't nerds funny? Again, this is the sort of thing national and local media outlets would fall over themselves for.
3)Heart strings
Play dirty. Did CoX save your life? Did you meet your partner there? Did it help you through some terrible crisis? Is it the only place you can hang out with your family who live on the other side of the country? What about the..Real Life Heroes fundraising? Can we get the charities that project supported to support us? We've helped to fund them, they NEED money, and they're going to lose a wedge of income when we go.
Go for the heart strings. Make 'em weep.
We're quite lucky, because a) mainstream news and journalism is a dying industry, and they're desperate to engage with the vital youth demogratic. Everyone knows that internet games are what all da kidz are doing right now. b) It's a quirky story Newspapers love something a bit different. It beats writing about local government meetings and angry residents pointing at dog mess in local parks.
We love 'the underdog raging against the man' stories. The public like them, too.
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Other:
We need to appeal to the gamer community at large - we're not asking them to like our game, or even play it. But we need for them to back us. We need to show the companies that run these games - who take our money and our time, and do all they can to get our loyalty, and then reward us by pulling the plug - that this isn't a cool way to operate. We need them to think that we aren't just a revenue stream - that those monthly subscriptions - whatever game it is - is a kid who's being picked on in school, but in a virtual world, he's a badass almost unbeatable PvP champion, is someone confined to their house because they're ill and it's the only contact they have with an outside world, that it's the army wife looking for a distraction while her husband is off risking his life in a desert somewhere. Our gaming tastes may be different, but the reasons we're in virtual words aren't.
We need to show that we're not just pixels, that we're a real life community - one with a population the size of Tokyo and Moscow combined, and we're just going to be wiped off the map. We have our own financial system, we have our own bases and houses. Just because we show up as pixels on a screen, it doesn't make us any less REAL.
I hope this is some help. Sorry that it's overly long.
