The 35-40 line coverage chunk

There's a certain tyranny with which most trade publication reporters must live: the 35- to 40-line story, which is the bulk of everything you see appear in all of the more prestigious trade magazines. With a better understanding of its intrinsic, manifest limitations, we can make a lot of our communications with the press at least a little more effective.

Five off the bottom.

One of its more obvious consequences comes at the bottom of the story, where four or five lines (sometimes more) carry little more than company name, address and phone information, which leaves only 30-35 lines for news. That leaves only about three to four column-inches.

Five off the top.

If you consider that a headline-only treatment of your news (with the one- to two-line headlines common to most releases, industrywide) might itself take another four to five column lines, we're down to only 25-30 lines to put the news into context and perspective.

Telling the story.

How would you approach that task? Quotes from a company executive? Few run longer than a sentence or two, which is enough to eat up another four to five lines, leaving just 20-25. A description of features? Wham, you're too long! Word on when it will be available? Three to four lines spent.

What's in the middle?

For new product announcements, most of the space goes to describing one or two of the product's real differences versus already-available alternatives. If the news is about a new version or upgrade, the focus is on (only) the major enhancements. If it's a joint announcement involving another company or another product, it will eat up all but about one short paragraph.

The inverted pyramid.

Since these relatively short stories are the mainstay of a publication's editorial coverage, statistics alone dictate that they are the format in which most of the coverage of your news will appear. This is the environment that engendered the inverted-pyramid style of press release writing, in which major points always come first. One good measure of a well-written release: if you draw a line anywhere on its pages, things that appear above the line are always more important than things which appear below.

Filling the quota.

Another important point: with so much of a magazine's editorial bulwark comprised of such short items, a reporter has to be good at turning them out in volume. Once the reporter's quota is "filled" for the week, the week's work is done. That's why seasoned reporters develop a knack for working on the stories they can knock out quickly, and resisting those that take too much time or trouble to prepare. And that's a very good reason to respond quickly to phone calls from the press, and any other requests for information or materials.

Also, recognize that a lot of things wind down at the end of a year. Weekly magazines skip a week, columnists file year-end theme stories ahead of schedule and everybody finds time to be away, doing the things in life that are really important.

We hope you can find or make the time, too. It helps keep all of our "35-line" daily emergencies in perspective.