Every year, there are moments that feel made for media: the Super Bowl, back-to-school season, the holidays, graduation season. And every year, brands and institutions line up to compete for the same finite inches of column space and seconds of airtime. The challenge for PR professionals isn’t recognizing those windows, it’s knowing how to actually break through them.
The truth is, notable moments don’t automatically create coverage. They create competition. When every organization wants a piece of the same cultural conversation, the ones that win aren’t necessarily the biggest or the loudest. They’re the ones with the best story.
Commencement season is a perfect case study in this dynamic.
The Noise Is Real, Especially in Florida
From April through June, graduation ceremonies happen somewhere in Florida virtually every week. With hundreds of colleges and universities across the state, from large public research institutions to smaller private schools, community colleges, and specialized programs, the sheer volume of commencement activity means local, regional, and higher ed reporters are fielding dozens of story pitches about the same milestone at the same time.
Add to that the national outlets covering graduation trends, and you have one of the most crowded earned media environments of the year. A press release announcing enrollment numbers or a notable speaker gets lost in that environment. What doesn’t get lost is a story.
What Storytelling Actually Means in This Context
In PR, “storytelling” gets thrown around so often it can start to feel meaningless. But in the context of commencement coverage, it has a very specific application: it means shifting the focus from the institution to the individual.
Reporters aren’t looking to write about your university’s graduation rate. They’re looking for the veteran who went back to school after two deployments overseas. The single mother who finished her degree alongside her daughter. The first-generation student whose entire family flew in from another country to watch her walk across the stage.
These are the stories that earn coverage, not because they’re sentimental, but because they’re specific. Specificity is what makes a story real and resonant. It’s what transforms a graduation announcement into a human-interest feature or a morning show lead-in.
The role of the PR professional is to find those stories, nurture the relationships needed to tell them responsibly, and package them in ways that make a reporter’s job easier.
The Mechanics: How to Identify and Develop Stories That Land
Start Early: Before the Semester Ends
By the time commencement week arrives, the best stories are already being told. Strong storytelling requires lead time: identifying candidates and crafting a pitch that gives a reporter everything they need to move quickly.
Know What Each Outlet Needs
A pitch to a TV morning show needs something different than a pitch to a higher education trade publication or a local newspaper. Television wants visuals, emotion, and a natural narrative arc that can be told in 90 seconds. Print wants depth, context, and a hook that connects to something broader. Trades want data and institutional significance.
Pair the Story With the Moment
Commencement is a natural peg, but the most effective storytelling connects the personal narrative to something larger. Whether that’s a broader trend in workforce development, a community’s economic recovery, or the growing role of nontraditional students in higher education, giving the story a “why now, why this matters” angle makes it more likely to land.
Make the Logistics Seamless
Once a reporter is interested, friction is the enemy. Have everything ready: a high-resolution photo of the student, a brief written bio, scheduling availability for interviews, and any supporting data that adds context. If a TV crew wants to film the student walking at commencement, coordinate that access proactively. The easier you make it, the more likely it happens.
Miami Dade College is a prime example in what proactive student storytelling can do. Ahead of MDC’s commencement across all eight campuses, the O&G team identified two stories that exemplify exactly the kind of coverage that breaks through.
- The first: a student who immigrated from Cuba, built his path through MDC, and went on to MIT. O&G facilitated the interview ahead of commencement and coordinated with a Miami Herald photographer on-site to capture the moment he crossed the stage, bringing the story full circle through both narrative and visuals.
- The second: a family of four who graduated together after immigrating from Jamaica. Recognizing the strength of the story early, O&G secured coverage before, during, and after the ceremony, including two NBC 6 segments, an on-site WSVN interview, and a post-event feature with Island TV.
Both stories generated sustained visibility and meaningful placements because the foundation was built well before commencement week began.
Beyond Commencement: A Framework for Any Crowded Moment
The principles that drive effective commencement storytelling apply across every high-competition media moment throughout the year. Whether it’s a major awareness month, a national news hook, or a seasonal trend, the framework is consistent:
Lead with people, not institutions
Coverage follows human stories. The institution is the context; the person is the story.
Be specific before you scale
One incredibly detailed, specific story will outperform five general announcements every time. Find the detail that makes the story undeniable.
Know your outlets and serve them
Understand what each reporter and each platform actually needs, and build your pitch around that, not around your messaging priorities.
Do the work before the window opens
Reactive PR is harder, more expensive, and less effective. The best earned media comes from preparation and relationships built before the pitch is ever sent.
Take Stock in Children
Another example is O&G #GoodClient Take Stock in Children. When more than 100 Take Stock in Children Orange County scholarship recipients gathered for what they believed was a recognition ceremony, they were surprised with news that their awards were being expanded from two years of college funding to four full years of undergraduate tuition, in partnership with the Florida Prepaid College Foundation.
The moment was immediate, emotional, and undeniably newsworthy, and it landed with media. The moment was featured on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel and highlighted not just the surprise announcement, but the organization’s broader mission. It was such a strong piece that the news was also picked up on a national scale, shared online by People Magazine.
The Bottom Line
Commencement season isn’t just about caps and gowns. For PR professionals who work in higher education, it’s one of the highest-stakes storytelling opportunities of the year — and one of the most competitive. The institutions that consistently earn meaningful coverage aren’t the ones sending the most press releases. They’re the ones with a team behind them that knows how to find the story, tell it well, and put it in front of the right people at the right time.
That’s the difference between being part of the noise and rising above it.