Whatever your specific publicity goals, you need to be mindful of the type of news releases that get published. Last April, I completed a qualitative quarterly review of our custom news distribution and the relative success people have been having in getting published as a result of sending fax and e-mail news releases. While this is by no means definitely, it is nonetheless useful. Localizing news releases maximizes the publication of your release in weekly and daily newspapers. The easiest publicity to get is the announcement of a local event with a distinct local human interest angle.
National publicity is harder, especially in mainstream publications.
You compete against everyone in the nation, and you have to distinguish why your release is worth publishing over others. You can make your job easier and be more successful by breaking your national media lists into geographically distinct areas and localizing the release. Of course, you need a custom targeted media list once you have a release and idea where you are going to send it. Even once you've identified your target media, settled on a type of news release, it all comes down to writing the actual release. My special technique is very simple and once you try it and succeed, you'll very probably never need a copywriter again.