Our September Skills Training featured Skip Wood and Erick Mack of Public News Service, who offered advice for many good questions that members had about press releases, reaching reporters, and working with the media.

Before the training, both editors contributed a series of training documents to our training center on press releases and story telling.

You’ve crafted an award-winning press packet – all the information the media will ever need for your big event. But it only gets a couple inches in the paper, or a big storm arrives the same day your packet comes in the mail and the storm is the only thing that gets coverage. And even if you do attract some media, you’re disappointed because they left so much out!

Skip Wood has been with Public News Service for ten years, first as producer/reporter and currently as editor. For the last eight years, he has also been a producer for "Hear It Now," a talk show on the Prairie Public radio network, a PBS affiliate. Before all that, he was news producer for KXJB-TV, Fargo for 21 years.