To aid in this endeavor, PR Newswire offers its members a so-called keyword density tool. “It lets you know the words someone would have to type into a search engine for your particular press release to be found, and helps put your release at the top of the search engine,” Mr. Armon said. “Green” and “environment” are huge right now, he said, as is “foreclosure.” “We’ve done 412 press releases that incorporate that word so far in ’08, up from 261 last year.” For the record, Mr. Armon added, the use of the word “toxic” in news releases is up 5 percent. The words that may help get a news release picked up vary from region to region. Brenda Baumgartner, the news director and anchor at KPVI, the NBC affiliate in Pocatello, Idaho, for example, looks for words like “fishing,” “hunting,” “Mormon” and “polygamy,” she said, “because they fit the culture we live around.” KPVI also went with the toxic curtain story. “Everybody takes showers,” Ms. Baumgartner said, by way of explanation. Words that help elevate a news release also vary from industry to industry. For instance, Tom Gable, the head of a San Diego public relations firm, said a news release about video games could benefit from a phrase like “faster graphics.” When talking about technology, he said, it would be “ ‘cost breakthrough,’ like the $200 computer.” In the entertainment industry, on the other hand, the most basic of nouns will do — baby, breakup, marriage, divorce — according to Cindi Berger, co-chief executive of the public relations firm PMK/HBH. “Now attach names like Madonna or Jessica Simpson,” Ms. Berger said, “and of course the assignment editor is going to pay attention.” Perhaps because many people in public relations are former journalists, they know what grates on the Fourth Estate. Mr. Gable, who was once the business editor of The San Diego Union, has compiled a list of words that will do a news release no good whatsoever, like “solutions,” “leading edge,” “cutting edge,” “state of the art,” “mission critical,” and “turnkey.” Mr. Gable said that his company once did a weeklong survey of the releases that came out of PR Newswire and Business Wire, a commercial news distribution service, “and most of the releases identified their company as ‘a leader’ and described their research as ‘cutting edge.’” “They were empty, unsubstantiated and had no news value,” he said. Ken Sunshine, the head of a P.R. firm in Manhattan, said he thought the media had an institutional bias against “hype-y terms” like “world renowned” and “once in a lifetime,” which he studiously avoids putting in his news releases. “But ‘unique’ is fine,” he said, “if something really is unique.” Ultimately, perhaps, the whole thing is less about terms than timing.