Press Release

A press release is a formal, factual announcement written for journalists and media outlets to pick up as a news story. It's not a marketing blast to customers — it's a pitch that a reporter, editor, or outlet has to judge as actually newsworthy before they'll write about it, quote it, or forward it to their audience.

Key components

• Headline — states the actual news in one line ("Acme raises $20M Series A led by X"), not a vague or clever line that requires reading the body to understand what happened.
• Inverted pyramid structure — the most important facts (what happened, who's involved, why it matters) go in the headline and first paragraph; supporting detail, background, and context follow in decreasing order of importance, since editors cut from the bottom.
• A quote from a named person — an actual executive, founder, or partner, attributed by name and title, saying something with real content rather than a generic sentiment ("We're thrilled to announce...").
• Boilerplate — a short, standard paragraph describing the company, placed near the end, reused consistently across releases so a reporter unfamiliar with the company gets the same baseline context every time.
• Media contact info — a real name, email, and phone number a journalist can actually reach for follow-up questions or an interview request.

Newsworthy to a journalist, not just significant to the company

The bar for a press release isn't "this matters to us" — it's "would an editor who doesn't work here run this." A journalist is judging whether their audience cares, whether it's timely, and whether it's genuinely new. An internal milestone, a minor feature update, or a routine hire rarely clears that bar on its own; a funding round, a notable partnership, a significant product launch, or a real first ("first company to...") more reliably does. When the news is thin, a direct pitch to specific reporters or a blog post usually serves better than a press release that goes nowhere.

Common pitfalls

• Buried lede — the actual news sitting several paragraphs in, behind company background or context, instead of in the headline and first sentence; a reporter skimming the first few lines and finding no news moves on.
• Marketing language instead of news language — copy full of adjectives like "revolutionary," "cutting-edge," or "game-changing" reads as an ad, not a story, and a journalist has to strip it all out before they can use any of it — making the release less likely to be used as written, if at all.
• A product update dressed up as an announcement — sending a press release for something with no real news hook trains editors and reporters to ignore the next one, even when it's genuinely newsworthy.
• No usable quote — a quote that just restates the headline in different words gives a reporter nothing to actually pull into their piece.
• Missing or generic contact info — a journalist with a follow-up question and no way to reach a real person at the company either drops the story or runs it without the detail they wanted to check.

Learn more

• Changelog and Release Notes for announcing product changes to existing users rather than pitching a story to press.
• Content Calendar for scheduling a release around a launch date and coordinating it with other announcements.
• Branding for the voice a quote and boilerplate should stay consistent with even in a more restrained, news-style format.
• Marketing Manager for the role that typically owns press strategy and reporter relationships.