Q: How to get free publications and coverage in the community project is interested in?

A: Media and specially news media interested in providing the hot news first. They need to be the source of new information in the world, so first step is not to release any news if you want media to publish somethin about you. Second, media loves novelty and interesting, entertaining content, so it might be useful to think about news / project in terms of novelty and interest of the audience.

One might review posts and media style to figure out the demand and how to deliver value to audience.

More ideas on how to write such a post can be found in a book Contagious: how do things catch on.