Can anyone submit a public announcement or a press release to the media? Or, are these things reserved for charities, superstars, and others with press agents or their own publicists/PR people? What are the details on how this works?
I submitted a press release to a small, local newspaper years ago when I started my business. I used a form that was part of Windows (Word?) and faxed it to the paper.
Someone called and did a brief interview over the phone. The paper ran it as a news story.
Anyone can submit a press release. Just make it look like a press release.
I work for a newspaper. Yes, anyone can submit a press release. The trick is knowing who to submit it to. (That’s why people tend to use PR agencies: because they have lists of contacts and know who is most likely to be interested in your press release.)
If its a small newspaper, then you are pretty safe sending it to anyone in the editorial department.
The trick is writing it in a way that catches notice and makes them think its something their readers wat to know about.
Note that anyone can send a press release to a newspaper/TV station, but that doesn’t mean the newspaper/TV will do anything with it – it’s always up to the paper/station to decide what stories they want to run.
The value of a good publicist is that they know who to call at the paper, and how to convince them that it’s a good story (the publicist also might have info/access/other favors that they can give the reporter, in return for the reporter writing the story and/or writing a favorable story).
The other trick is giving them enough information, in a way they expect, so they can write a story (or at least begin) just from the release.
I send oodles of news releases, but am fortunate that the media is usually fascinated and wants to cover us (anytime we are sending anyone out and about with weapons, in big, green vehicles or blowing anything up).
If you want any help, let me know. As long as it’s newsworthy and written well, it should be a pretty easy sell 
I used to teach chess at a private school in a small country town.
We had a local newspaper that came out once a week.
When I managed to get Garry Kasparov to visit the school to give a simultaneous, I contacted the Editor of the local paper first (before the national press and TV 
).
He came to interview the pupil players and myself and finished up devoting over half of the paper to a ‘World Exclusive’! 
I used to do it all the time for our Toastmasters Club. I had about six places I’d e-mail once a week, and our local paper was great about using it.
Around San Antonio there’s a free monthly “newspaper” that gets mailed out to everyone (slightly different versions for different zip codes) and is otherwise available for free at gas stations/restaurants/etc which seems to consist of 90% press releases and obviously sponsored content masquerading as “news”. So, if you’ve got a press release to get out there, don’t forget to find your local area’s equivalent "news"paper.
Yes anyone can submit a press release. Actually they like it because YOU are writing their stories for them! (Less work for them if they can simply copy what you wrote. Send it email and they can copy/paste.)
With that said, search for “press release” on google.com and learn how they should be written properly. There are certain formats/colors of wording at the top, etc.
And write so complete idiots can understand what you are saying (the intelligence of the general public), don’t use big words. Write it exactly like a story would appear in print.
If you are advertising a business, they will MORE LIKELY print it if you have recently or at the same time had a paid advertisement with them.
And don’t over do it. Unless you have a lot of newsworthy things.
Thanks for the good thoughts and advice. I’ll have to carefully consider my next move to avoid winding up in the circular file!
Remember too, the content of your press release need not be true or newsworthy. These days, if newspapers and other media don’t pick it up, you can put it in your blog to publish it yourself.
If you put it on the internet, it must be true!
Follow ivylass’s advice on formatting so you won’t look like a noob. In my industry there is a service where you can file your press release and it gets sent to a long list of publications. See if there is something appropriate for you.
In some trade rags buying an ad increases your chances of getting an article placed substantially. That might not be what you’re doing though.
Big time trade secret from a pr guy… the absolute BEST alternative is, generally, find a journalist who has written about something similar, call him/her up, and say “hey, I saw your recent article on flying cars, I am working on a new kind of flying boat, is that something you might be interested in?”
He/she might say yes send me over some information, you repeat your name so that he /sheknows who the email will be coming from, and that way when it comes in subconsciously he/she will actually look for it among the hundreds of other releases.
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Granted, this approach takes about an hour per reporter, and that’s even for those of us who have access to databases of phone numbers and archives of past articles and whatnot. For a Joe Schmoe it might take you half a day to get a real person at the newspaper, and God help you getting a television station for more than three seconds
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Unless it’s a press conference or something that would be pointless if reporters aren’t there, then don’t stress too much about the circular file. Obviously, format it nicely, follow-up with individual reporters if possible, etc. But some portion of it is completely out of your control; you might have the perfect story that the reporter is dying to do, but then that day the reporter suddenly has to cover the developing hostage situation or something and, well, that’s the way news works.