Today's newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs are swamped with information from a multitude of sources. Everyone has an interest in the limited print space or air time available.

The media's perception of what is interesting or important can be very different from that of Church members. A Church conference might be ignored in an area where the Church is not well known, while a newspaper in the same area might find interest in a group of young people who meet early before school each day for a voluntary religious study class.

When DPAs write news releases that show they understand what interests the public, the media's acceptance of their releases increases sharply. Although opportunities for feature stories occasionally will present themselves, this section focuses primarily on how to identify news story ideas and how to write the stories in basic news-release format. It shows how to present stories about the Church so the news media will be more likely to publish them as general news, not just as items on churches.