Earning media for your brand is one of the most effective ways to broaden reach, establish authority, and—ultimatey—increase your market share. Yet getting a foothold in the fast-paced, ever-shifting, oft-exclusive news can be a real challenge; merely having an attractive offering or a valuable insight will rarely suffice on its own. PR professionals must meet journalists’ and readers’ particular inclinations if they want to earn their attention.

So what do people like to read in the news? Numerous studies and decades of public relations experience suggest the answer is a complex combination of many factors. Some of the factors nonetheless appear again and again across varied outlets and topics, and the more “news drivers” a story has, the more likely it is to make the news. Below are seven such factors you can practically incorporate into the stories you pitch to earn more exposure for your brand.

1. Impact: Who Does It Affect, and How Much?

Impact is perhaps the most obvious reason for a story to make the news. It asks the key question of why something matters, and to whom. What will change for the public, for customers, for the industry? How drastic will the change be? About 23% of stories in a sweeping study of top-tier UK outlets prominently featured a major impact on a significant number of people. Identifying and quantifying who will be impacted by your story makes it clear why a media outlet’s audience should care.

2. Prominence: Who Can Readers Recognize?

The involvement of recognizable leaders, icons, or authorities can lead readers—and thus journalists—to care more about topics they otherwise might have overlooked. Roughly half of the stories in the aforementioned UK study involved either celebrities or people and organizations with notable power. These don’t have to be household names; every vertical and niche comes with its own set of recognized figures. It is therefore worth leveraging prominence among partners, customers, lawmakers, or anyone adjacent to your topic.

3. Proximity: Does It Hit Close to Home?

People care more about things that touch their daily lives, their communities, or their sense of identity—all of which correspond strongly with physical proximity. A 2024 study by the Pew Research Center found that 66% of U.S. adults follow local news at least somewhat closely. Tying your story to particular outcomes in particular communities, then, will make pickup within those communities significantly more likely. If you’re pitching a local TV news outlet, make sure the news has a local impact.

4. Newness: Is It Something Different?

People respond to change. A story about something that is merely ongoing will almost always lose out to a story about something new and different. This is especially true if the new thing is surprising; the element of surprise featured in 49% of stories in the UK study. Highlighting what is new and contrasting it with what came before sends a clear message that your message—whatever it may be—is news.

5. Timeliness: Why Now?

Most stories have a limited shelf life, with some remaining relevant far longer than others. This is largely because your target audience will only have a limited number of topics in which they are actively interested at any given time. Pitching a story that is currently relevant to that audience allows you to harness existing momentum rather than combatting inertia to create entirely new interest. Monitoring what your audience is searching, reading, and watching will help you to identify timely topics.

6. Conflict: Is There Tension?

The universal appeal of drama makes conflict a valuable element; a broad study published in 2020 found that conflict was the single most significant indicator of a prominent story. This is why network TV shows invite guests with opposing views; mere agreement is uninteresting. Conflict can be as simple as a status quo being challenged by reformers or two mutually exclusive goods in competition. If there is tension being resolved, it’s probably news.

Putting It Together

Asking yourself all six of these questions every time an idea comes along will help you to judge from the start how likely journalists are to pick it up. The more boxes it ticks, the more attractive it will be—and the more likely you are to get real, meaningful exposure for your effort.

Be sure to check out our other blogs on useful and interesting public relations topics, like a free white paper that explains how to get cited by AI.

7 Factors That Drive the News, and How to Leverage Them for Publicity