I sent a press release to my hometown, since it's a small town (8000 residents) an hour from the nearest city, and knew they would print it. They did, and I saw a big sales bump of print copies immediately (plus the library ordered 3 copies, and the Senior Center is doing it for the July selection for their Book Discussion Club...I'm going to Skype in for the meeting).
I did not send it to the newspapers in my current town. The Washington Post would laugh and certainly not print it, and I doubted the local Alexandria paper would either, since it's a self-published book. They don't generally even print articles about traditionally-published genre authors (and there are many) unless it's a major, major deal or book that has gotten significant national media attention.