This is admittedly an oversimplifcation (many reporters, editors and publishers are motivated by other, often higher, objectives, such as insuring that the general public is properly informed about important issues or that governments, corporations and other social and economic power wielders act in the best interests of society. But even this doesn't change the basic fact that "newsworthiness" describes information that the media believe the people want, or should want, to see, hear or read. It is, therefore, a measure of interest.The following five criteria are handy tools for measuring whether your key messages are newsworthy.

1. Relevance - The impact the story may have on the publics reached by your selected media. There are three basic elements to relevance: Temporal proximity, physicial proximity and probability. Something that will happen today is more newsworthy than if that something were to happen next year. Something happening in your back yard is more newsworthy than that same thing happening on the other side of the globe. And something that you believe more likely to happen is more newsworthy than something that you believe to be less likely to happen.

2. Topicality - Other events or issues before the public that may make your story more relevant. If public attention is focussing on potholes, than a story on ways to prevent road surfaces from breaking up in winter is more newsworthy than if the pothole issue is not on the public agenda. Topicality brings home the point that relevance is highly subjective. Something is relevant if you believe it is relevant. Often, your task is to raise public consciousness on important issues; that is, to make them topical.

3. Human interest - Stories that touch our heart strings, affect our sense of justice and morality or focus on individuals and are told through their eyes. As Stalin once remarked: A million deaths is a statistic; a single death is a tragedy. Saying that a record-high 1.1 million Canadians were unemployed last month is newsworthy. But telling the story of unemployment through the suffering of a handful of families would be more newsworthy.

Using human interest to tell your story is more effective when the information you wish to convey lacks strong relevance, either because the impact is low or is not immediate.

4. Entertainment - If it's fun, funny or a bit off-beat, the media will love it. "It doesn't mean much, much it's a great read," were words I often heard, and somethimes uttered, in the Toronto Star newsroom.

5. Controversy - It's the meat and potatoes of the media, but you don't want to cook your goose. The fact is you rarely, if ever, look good when ranting and raving. But the media want you to because it's entertaining and will thus sell more papers and attract more viewers. So you will constantly have to dodge reporters' efforts to embroil you in controversy. The trick is to seize upon controversies because of their relevance or topicality, but not to get embroiled in them. The way to do this is to stick to the merits of the issue and avoid personal attacks on your opponents.