This is the blog post to accompany the ‘Promoting your research workshop’ at 2021 Ecology Across Borders in Liverpool. Whether you made it to the conference or not, you can find some useful tips here on how to communicate your research to a wide audience.

Davy Falkner – Media Relations Officer

Our BES Media Relations Officer gives a run down of how to find the news hook in your paper and what to think about when writing a press release

What makes a good news story?

• Human / public interest
• Impact
• Novelty
• Superlatives
• Timeliness
• Proximity
• Unexpected
• Controversy

How to highlight news hooks – use 5 Ws and H

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

Structure of a press release

Think of an inverted pyramid with your most important, main findings at the top, then you want the implications of your findings with any relevant quotes and finally the background, methods…