Roberta Zoppo, English II year LM, Task 4, April, 7, 2009

Target: an Irish Newspaper, the one most read in North Dublin where you are living (imaginatively).
See: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-factsheet/dublin--media-amp-books-20081128-6krk.html?page=-1
In North Dublin most people probably read The Irish Independent.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Independent
Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_newspapers#Dublin

21 July 1997

ENEL*: INAUGURATES TWO GEOTHERMOELECTRIC** ULTRAMODERN POWER STATIONS
Roberta Zoppo

[*Your readership cannot possibly know what “e-n-e-l” means. Do you know what ESB is? (You can see here: http://www.esb.ie/main/home/index.jsp ). My suggestion:
“ITALY INAUGURATES TWO NEW ULTRA-GREEN POWER STATIONS”

** Don't alienate readers with technical jargon immediately, you can explain the term in the story. If you were sending the news release to the Irish Times, then “geothermoelectric” would be all right. But not if your target are the North Dubliners who read the Independent.]

Today the Italian energy company Enel inaugurated two new geothermoelectric ultramodern power stations for a total investment of around 210 11 billion lire euros in a town close to Pisa. [Good!! “Close to Pisa” is enough for your target public. In the next to last paragraph you can mention the town just to be complete.] These power plants, with an overall capacity of 40 Mw, are able to produce 260 million kW/h per year, the requirements for about 350,000 people. [This doesn't interest Sun readers, so put it at the end of the article. For now say what is new and sensational: that power comes from the bowels of the Earth!!]

"We can state with satisfaction – the Chairman of Enel said - that together with the development and enhancement of geothermoelectric resources, Enel is working actively in the field of research, with attention to the environment and local situations”. [Interesting choice: this quote gives the meaning of the whole article; putting it near the top is like an “abstract” in a scientific paper. Clever, but, in my opinion, wasted on your target public. So you are only giving the editor of The Independent something he will have to cut, to avoid boring his public.]

Enel is one of the first electricity companies in the world to use a technology that involves “fluid washing” at a depth of more than 1,000 metres: water is pumped into the hot bowels of the Earth and comes back out as steam, used to drive turbines. [Your public is not highly educated, you have to explain this to them. The ENEL press release was written by engineers for... other engineers and therefore was probably not published in the world dailies. Don't make the same mistake!] These plants have also been designed to reduce their impact on the environment.

This is another important step in the development of geothermal power. [You can say this sentence only if you have given an explanation, such as the one I suggested.] Over the next five years there are plans to raise capacity by around 200 Mw in addition to the current 512. [Good! Short and sweet.] Because of the multiple uses of steam in industry and as an alternative source of energy for domestic heating, the construction of these two new Enel power stations should have a positive impact on the whole area in terms of employment and for social and economic benefits. [A long sentence but substantially much easier to read (for an Anglo) than the original ENEL press release.]

[Excellent, especially at the end.
Your news release has a 100% better chance of getting published in an Irish dailey than than the ENEL press release, especially a daily like the Independent. Good job.]