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Press

ne extremely high-leverage way to promote CodeDay to a wide audience is through press coverage.

Press is usually ineffective at generating signups or leads on its own, but provides strong name recognition, so that when a student, teacher, or sponsor hears about CodeDay several days later, they'll be more likely to engage.

Reporters can sometimes move very quickly, and sometimes very slowly, so you should start contacting press at the same time you contact other groups. (In many cases, reporters may be more interested in attending the event and writing about what happened, which won't help as much for this event, but may help more later.)

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Who to Contact

Like with sponsorships and other promotion, you should start by putting together a list of targets. Make sure you include all press, such as:

  • Big Newspapers
  • Small, Local Newspapers
  • Maganizes
  • TV Stations
  • Bloggers

Make sure you're not just looking for big publications. For example, CodeDay Seattle should certainly reach out to the Seattle Times, but should also reach out to small, suburban newspapers (like the Redmond Reporter), and industry publications (like 425 Business Magazine). Likewise, your major cable news network should be contacted, but so should your local Univision station.

Once you've got a list of potential press targets, your next step is identifying who you can contact at each organization. Most companies have an online tips form, or a tips@ email, but these are more likely to be full of spam and should be your last resort. Instead, try to find a journalist who's written about something similar at the organization (technology, education, or business are good places to look), and contact them directly. Because finding news is literally their job, most media outlets and journalists publish their emails online!

What Does a Press Release Look Like

Press releases aren't a magical incantation. The goal of a press release is simply to convey the gist of what's going on, and the easiest way to do that is by, essentially writing your own article about the news. (In fact, some outlets will literally copy-and-paste sections of the press release into their article!)

Tell a Story

It's important that a press tells a story. In some cases, the arrival of CodeDay is news on its own, but if your city has already hosted five CodeDays, and they've already been covered extensively in the press, that's not usually a story on its own. Start by writing a headline which will shape the rest of your story. Here are a few examples:

  • "CodeDay" Comes to [City]
  • Interest in [City] CodeDay Skyrockets
  • Local Interest in Computer Science Jumps After CodeDay
  • [Local Celebrity] to Help Kids Code at CodeDay

If you need inspiration, you can always look to articles written by other news outlets about CodeDay or similar organizations for inspiration.

Another part of telling a story is including quotes, which will be useful for journalists who don't have the time to research the subject intensively. If you've run a CodeDay in the region before, try to include a quote from a stakeholder (for example, a student, teacher, school district, or celebrity). You should also be sure to include a quote from someone working on CodeDay, even if that's yourself! You can also ask our global staff for quotes if it would be useful.

Five W's

You've probably heard of the "five W's," and when we're talking about press releases, it's critically important that you make them clear. A reader without any knowledge of CodeDay or STEM should have a good understanding of who is running CodeDay, what CodeDay is, when and **where **the event is happening, and why it's an important event.

Inverted Pyramid

You should also put the most important information up front -- authors usually refer to this style of writing as "inverted pyramid". Start with the most basic, and most important bit of knowledge about what's happening: If the reader only read the very first paragraph, what would you want them to know about the story? Now, what about if they only read the first two paragraphs? And so on.

When you're done, you should be able to cut the press release in between any two paragraphs, removing the lower paragraphs, and the release should make sense.

It's also important to remember that, because someone might stop reading at any time, the earlier paragraphs are more important than the later ones. In particicular, your first paragraph is the most important, and the one you should spend the most time on. When deciding whether to cover an event, it's the paragraph journalists will most consider.

Sample Press Release

Here's a very generic example press release. Rather than copying it and changing a few parts, you should use it as an example format, but write your own based on a story unique to your city. (See the section on telling a story above.)

Boca Raton Students to Spend 24 Hours Coding

[[BOCA RATON, FL]]: This [[February 13th]], [[over one-hundred]] students are expected to attend CodeDay in [[Boca Raton]], part of the nationwide series of programming events targeted at high school and college students. The event aims to show students the fun side of coding by helping students code their own ideas for apps or games.

A score of recent efforts have aimed to increase the availability of computer classes in public schools, including a $4B plan unveiled by the White House, but most students still have little interest in learning.

"There was so little interest in a lot of our partner schools that some were placing random students in coding classes to fill up seats," said Tyler Menezes, the organization's director. "By showing students, 'hey, you can really bring your own ideas to life with this,' we're been showing students how fun it can really be."

One such idea created by a previous [[Boca Raton]] team: [[a game about an astronaut whose spaceship is taken over by hostile aliens. "For a first time programmer looking to get their feet wet, this is pretty much the only place to do it," Brett Miller, one of the creators of the space game, said of CodeDay.]]

Mentors and a brief workshop are provided to beginners to help them with the technical side.

StudentRND, the non-profit which runs CodeDay, will run the event in [[24 cities]] simultaniously on [[February 13]], giving students from [[Boca Raton]] an opportunity to meet students from cities including Boston, Minneapolis, and Seattle. When the event ends on the morning of [[February 14]], several thousand students will present what they made over the weekend.

[[StudentRND hosted two previous CodeDay events in Boca Raton: in the Spring and Fall of 2014. Nationwide, CodeDay has hosted 250 events, and over 15,000 students have participated. The non-profit's expansion into the area was supported by an area technology company: LexisNexis Risk Solutions.]]

For more information or tickets visit www.codeday.org.