To help aid you in writing press releases to local and campus media, the CFN offers sample press releases and tips on crafting a release that will generate the most media exposure possible.

• Carefully think through the headline and write it as if your recipient will read only this. In order to capture the attention of the editor, the headline should be short, bold and slightly larger than your body text. As with the rest of the release, keep your font simple and professional. Every word in the title should be capitalized, unless the word is “a”, “the”, or “an”.
• While writing your press release, you should assume that you readers will only be skimming the text. Therefore, every paragraph should be written as tightly and concisely as possible. Remember to entice your reader by putting the most important information first and keep an objective, third-person perspective.
• When deciding what to include in your release, pretend that you are explaining the event to friends who do not know about the event. What questions might they have for you? It is a good idea to have friends who are not in your group read the release to see if you are missing any important details. The most important questions to answer are the date, time and location of the event as well as why the reader should care about the upcoming lecture. Be sure to also include one or more well-placed quotes from officers like your club president explaining why you have decided to bring a FIRE lecturer. In addition, feel free to include details from the speaker’s biography to establish their credibility for your audience.
• Before closing, include a short paragraph describing the mission of your organization and your group’s website, if applicable.
• Finish the release, by including the contact information for your club president or the appropriate contact person for the event.

Sample Press Release

Berryville University Student Group to Host Free Speech Expert

BERRYVILLE, Utah, January 27, 2012 — Too often, college campuses betray their mission to be bastions of free speech and free thought. On college campuses across the country schools maintain unconstitutional and illiberal policies. To make ensure that their college remains vigilant against these threats, the Berryville Progressive Student Union has decided to sponsor a lecture by the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, a prominent first amendment group.

FIRE is a non-profit educational foundation based in Philadelphia, PA. It was founded in 1999 by Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvey A. Silverglate, an attorney in Boston. They created FIRE after co-authoring The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses in 1998 and subsequently receiving hundreds of pleas for help from victims of illiberal policies, double standards, intolerable violations of their rights, and intrusions upon private consciences on college campuses. FIRE’s mission is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities.

The Berryville Progressive Student Union will host Greg Lukianoff, FIRE’s president, on Thursday, March 13. A graduate of American University and Stanford Law School, Lukianoff has been with FIRE since 2001. He has published articles in the LA Times, The Boston Globe, The Stanford Technology Law Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fraternal Law, Inside Higher Ed, the New York Post, and numerous other publications. He is a blogger for the Huffington Post and served as a regular columnist for the Daily Journal of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Lukianoff is a frequent guest on local and national syndicated radio programs, has represented FIRE on national television shows—including CBS Evening News, The O'Reilly Factor, Glenn Beck, The Abrams Report, Hannity and Colmes, and Buchanan and Press—and has testified before the U.S. Senate about free speech issues on America's campuses.

The lecture, entitled, “Liberty in Peril: The State of Freedom on Campus” will start at 7PM in the Shirker Auditorium in the Berryville Fine Arts Building. A question and answer period and a short reception will follow the event. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Berryville Progressive Student Union is a student group at Berryville University committed to advocating progressive issues on campus. The group, founded in 2002, produces a monthly magazine, The Pulse, which provides relevant student opinion on campus and national issues from a progressive perspective. The group also sponsors thought-provoking lectures each semester to spark discussion and debate on campus.

CONTACT: Brad Jones, President, Berryville Progressive Student Union: 234-557-9378; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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