Human Interest. Look at what you put out from the perspective: Would this be part of the human interest category in a newspaper? If not, then you're unlikely to get covered unless you know someone.

Furthermore, who are you? You have to be someone newspaperable, for example:

"The guy who made a robot that sang songs"

"A 16 year old boy"

"A guy who traded a paperclip up"

There are so many standard developers, you need to make a press friendly definition of yourself. Then email interns who are always looking for a story. Locate them on linkedin.