Conditional content in Thesis theme

I’m using a static page as my homepage, with posts showing on a “news” page.

I’d like to include some text that will only appear at the top of the page that shows my posts.

I’ve tried using a php IF statement, in the “before content” section of Thesis open hooks, but this doesn’t seem to work, although the same method is being used to display footer content only on the home page.

any ideas?