Keep journalists up to date
Daily newspapers are still the most important medium for reaching a broad public. Radio and television also have a large reach. So that journalists find out about your petition, inform them and provide them with all the relevant facts, pictures and an exciting, personal story about your concern. You should inform the press when you start your petition and, most importantly, invite them to all of your offline actions and the submission of the petition.
Keep interested journalists informed about developments in the meantime. Events that are thematically related to your petition, e.g. a public holiday, a demonstration or a draft law are suitable as a starting point for a press release. Most of them have no experience with it, but editors don't bite and they can't say more than no. Let's go:
collect contacts: Look for e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of editors who might be interested in your issue. Possible points of overlap are: same topics (e.g. specialist newspapers), regional proximity (local newspapers) or ideal proximity (same convictions).
make contact: Call the editorial offices and ask which e-mail address you should send your information to or ask for the contact of the editor. It's important to send a message to the right person or department, otherwise your information will be lost.
write a press release: Send out a press release about your petition. It should present all the facts factually and to the point and contain contact persons for more information. Checklist press release:
- Subject: A summary sentence that arouses curiosity. For example: 'Dresden woman starts sign language petition for deaf son'
- First paragraph: Here you can directly answer the questions who, what, when and where. No long introductory sentences!
- center part: Here you answer the questions how and why and tell the background story. There is room for interesting details here.
- celebrities: Point this out to the press if prominent personalities support your petition. The same applies to politicians.
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Ending:
Enter all further information here. Must not be missing
- the short link to the petition
- Your contact details (e-mail address and telephone number) and the offer to be available as an interview partner
- Dates of your planned actions
- Write a maximum of one page.
- Send meaningful pictures in good quality.
Online: If an article about your petition has appeared online (almost all print articles also appear online), make sure to include the link to the petition! In this way you will receive a large number of signatures and interested parties can keep themselves up to date on the current state of affairs. Be sure to call the editorial offices afterwards to point out a (still) missing link - we do that too, but we don't hear every press report either.
Support through openPetition: We are at your side with all these steps. It is important that you keep us up to date. If we notice that you are strongly committed, then we will also be committed to you. For example, if we learn of a planned handover, we can advise you and, if necessary, draw your attention to it via our channels.