ABSTRACT
The most common question posed by executives is starkly simple: 'What is news, and how can one get their company on it or in it?' It is a perfectly good question, and the rationale behind it is clear. They feel that if they can learn what a news mould looks like, they can squeeze their own media activities into it, and so make favourable publicity easier to achieve. Diary stories offer greater opportunities for media publicity than the 'hold the front page' type of news of folklore, which tends to be almost exclusively the preserve of breaking news. News tends to be made in a systematic way and follows a set process. This chapter explains that process, and gives the tools to take advantage of it. 'Having a good news sense' means one that exactly tallies with the newspaper, TV or radio station's own news agenda. People and equipment together form the biggest budget lines in any media business.
