vi. Media Relations Glossary
Aggregator A website where news headlines are collected either manually or automatically, for example the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post or Google News
Body Several paragraphs that offer details, statistics, background and other information relevant to a news release
Boilerplate A paragraph that describes an organization and can be used in press releases, at the bottom of emails, on blogs and websites, or as a bio/description
Caption A short sentence under a photograph that explains who or what it depicts
Close A symbol that indicates the end of a press release (“-30-“ or “###” or “ends”)
Copy Written content in publications
Dateline States the date and originating city of a press release
Deadline The absolute date or hour given to deliver copy
DPS Double-page spread
Embargo Request to wait to publish or broadcast a story until a certain time
EPK Electronic Press Kit; a press kit in electronic form (also known as online press room)
Feature Story that is not news and includes analysis
Filler Short story, usually at the bottom of a page or column
Headline Short snappy title to a story
Introduction Two or three lines under the headline, to give a little more information about it (also known as standfirst)
Lead time Describes the amount of time that a journalist has between receiving a writing assignment and submitting the completed piece (anything from a couple of hours to many months)
Media release A communication to media intended to encourage development of articles on a subject. Often formatted like a newspaper article, it describes a story that could be published about an organization or product and is of interest to a number of people
Op-Ed An article that expresses the opinions of a named writer or organization on a matter of public interest (also known as opinion piece)
Pitch A short presentation of an idea
PR Public Relations; how you control information between an organization and the public
Press kit A collection of press releases, photographs and information to offer to media
Press release A communication to media intended to encourage development of articles on a subject. Formatted to highlight an event, program, or piece of information by an organization and describes the who, what, where, when, why and how of the story
PSA Public Service Announcement; a brief event listing or broadcast announcement that provide basic who, what, when and where information about an upcoming event
Pull quote Text set in bold and larger type within the copy that catches the reader’s attention; usually pulled from the body of the text (also known as cross-head)
RSS Really Simple Syndication; a form of web publication which finds user selected web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs and puts them in a single location for easy viewing
SMR Social Media Release; a communication to media and public that uses social media like Facebook or Twitter to promote a press or media release
Social Media Allow people to connect online to form relationships for personal, political and business use (also known as user-generated content, consumer-generated media or Web 2.0)
Spike To ‘spike’ a story is to reject it
Stet An editing term that cancels a deletion or change made (from Latin: Let it stand)
Tag A keyword given to a piece of information (such as an image, website, computer file, blog) that helps describe an item and allows it to be found by browsing or searching
Tag cloud A visual depiction of tags used to describe the content of websites (also known as word cloud)
Thumbnail A reduced-size version of a picture
Typo A spelling mistake
Widow A single word or line at the bottom of a page, which is the first line of the next paragraph continued on the next page. These should be removed. (also known as orphan)
