We use press releases to keep journalists abreast of current events and news from the university. If you have a news item that might be interesting to the public, please contact the Office of News and Public Affairs, ideally with a draft text that can be used as a basis.

With the wealth of information that crosses the desks of editors at newspapers, news agencies, radio and TV stations every day, a press release must be written clearly, concisely, and in language that is easy to understand. This is the only way a text can attract journalists’ attention and have a chance of being picked up in the media.

We use your draft or suggestions to prepare a press text according to journalistic criteria. That text is then submitted to you for approval. Finally, we send it out to the media.

Our e-mail distribution list includes about 1,500 radio, TV, print, and online journalists within the region and beyond, alongside news agencies, editorial desks, and the German correspondents of foreign media outlets. For major stories, we also transmit the press release via the Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw) science and arts news service. Depending on the field, these items can reach up to several thousand readers. We also communicate about prominent scientific news, research findings, and events via the English-language news portal Alpha Galileo, which reaches more than 7,500 accredited journalists from 85 countries.

Please bear in mind that translating your news item into English, if necessary, and editing your suggested text according to journalistic standards both take time. Trade publications and journals and all non-daily media also plan their content well in advance, so invitations and notices of upcoming events should ideally go out at least three weeks in advance. That does, however, assume that we receive your draft text with sufficient lead time.

We are certainly able to send press releases on short notice if necessary. If, however, we receive short notice of upcoming scheduled events, we can no longer guarantee that the press text will be sent – particularly not in cases in which doing so would require that we postpone other publication requests received with adequate lead time.

Please be sure to send a draft of your press release text to us as soon as possible.
Email: presse@fu-berlin.de; Tel.: 030 / 838-731 80