1. Choose the right VNR writer/producer. If a broadcast news outlet is going to use your VNR package, it must look and sound like a real TV news story, not an outsider's idea of what TV news might sound like. Pick a writer for your VNR who has actually written professional news copy and a producer who has actually shot or directed footage for broadcast news stories.

2. Realize you're working for two different audiences. VNRs must meet the needs of two separate and distinct groups: the viewers at home and the producers of TV newscasts. The home audience wants to know what the news is and how it affects them. News producers are tougher and more important. If they don't think your story is worthy of their newscast, it will never air and will never reach the home audience. Your story must be timely enough, important enough, and professionally polished enough to rise above the rest of the information overload producers face every day and convince them it deserves a spot on their already crowded news slate.

3. Your story must have news value. The most important element of a news story is "news": something happening now that has an effect on people's lives. Ironically, this is often the hardest part of the VNR concept for corporate clients and producers to grasp. The fact that you introduced a product today has no news value in itself. But the fact that you introduced a product today that will cure cancer in 20 million people is news. The number of producers who deem your story worthy of inclusion in their newscasts will be directly proportional to the story's news value.

4. Always shoot and edit your story on videotape. This may seem unnecessary advice in today's age of electronic communications, but many corporate clients, wanting to save money by reusing footage shot for commercials, or just wanting their products to look as "pretty" as possible, will use film footage in VNRs. But broadcast news shows are shot exclusively on tape...and if you want your footage to make it onto the air, your footage must be tape as well, to match the overall look of the news program.

5. Include both a fully "packaged" (edited) news story and raw video, audio and graphics elements on your VNR reel. Large-market newscasts, with large staffs and adequate production budgets, always prefer to edit their own stories, no matter what the source of the material. Small market stations, on the other hand, tend to have very limited staff and budgets, and are often grateful for timely, pre-packaged stories they don't have to expend valuable resources to produce. Also, large-market stations, although they won't use pre-packaged stories on the air, will look at them for background information and to get ideas for producing their own stories about your news.

6. Provide video footage and graphics that are both interesting and unique. Reporters and editors always prefer to create their own video, but if you give them something they can't get themselves, they'll use yours. This includes behind-the-scenes footage, such as manufacturing shots, and shots of far away places that would be too expensive for stations to travel to.

7. Include graphics and animation, when appropriate, to show how a product or process works. These eye-catching elements are often the key to "selling" your VNR story, because they're both fun to watch and they can provide a clear demonstration of sometimes difficult technical concepts - at no production cost to the news station.

8. Don't include studio or table-top product shots. These "beauty" shots are found in commercials, not news stories. Keep them there. Instead, show your products being used by real people in real-life locations and situations.

9. Avoid mentioning product and company names as much as possible. This is another hard one for most corporate clients and producers, simply because the whole point of the VNR is to get the company's name and or product out before the public. But most news outlets won't use a story that sounds like a commercial or blatant company propaganda. Just remember: if your product or service is as unique as you're saying it is, all inquiries will lead right back to your company, whether or not you've mentioned your name five times in the story.

10. Be creative in your distribution techniques. Although broadcast television stations will be your primary target for VNRs, be sure not to forget talk shows, magazine shows, cable stations, airline in-flight programs, packagers of shorts and trailers for movie theaters and, more and more these days, websites (both yours and those belonging to others). Each of these outlets can help you reach an even wider audience than just newscasts alone, and some VNR "news" is actually much more appropriate for these "softer" venues than it is for nightly "hard" newscasts.

If you think a Leaping Lizard video news release could be an important part of your communications or public relations program...

...to contact us today.