Every working day, journalists in New York, Berlin, London, Singapore and a thousand smaller newsrooms open a press release, read the first line, and decide. The decision takes seconds. Most releases lose it for reasons that have nothing to do with the strength of the story: the headline promises nothing, the first paragraph buries the news, or the whole thing reads like an advertisement rather than a report.
This guide is written by editors who have sat on the other side of that decision. At Presswire, every release we distribute is read and checked by former BBC journalists before it goes, and the same faults come up again and again. What follows is how to avoid them, in the order a journalist will meet your release.
Decide what the release is for
Settle this before the first line is written, because it changes the writing. Four purposes cover almost everything that crosses our desk, and a release that tries to serve all four serves none of them.
- Coverage. You want a journalist to write about it, so the release has to contain something they can stand up: a number, a first, a decision, a consequence for someone other than you.
- Disclosure. Results, board changes, material events. Completeness, accuracy and timing matter more than style, and the wording is often settled with advisers before it reaches the wire.
- The record. A statement issued during a dispute, a recall or a crisis. Plain, dated and quotable, so that what you said and when you said it cannot later be argued about.
- Familiarity. The regular release that builds a relationship over time: a developer’s monthly sales index, a law firm partner’s commentary on a case in the news. Individually these rarely lead a bulletin; cumulatively they make you the person a journalist telephones when the subject comes up.
There is a fifth thing a release does now that it did not do twenty years ago: it is read directly. Google News carries releases, and search and AI assistants quote them. That is a reason to write it as a finished, factual document rather than a nudge to a reporter — but it is not a reason to write it for a search engine. A release stuffed with keywords and repeated across dozens of sites for links is the pattern Google has warned about since 2013, and it does nothing for coverage.
What editors actually read first
Not the whole release. A journalist scanning an inbox or a newsroom wire sees three things: the headline, the first sentence, and the name of the organisation. If those three do not add up to “this is news, and it is news for my readers”, the release is gone.
So press release writing is a discipline of front-loading. The most important fact goes in the headline, the next most important facts in the first paragraph, and everything else is arranged so that an editor can cut from the bottom without losing the story. This is the inverted pyramid, and it has survived every change in the media because it matches how newsrooms work.
The headline
A press release headline is not a slogan and not a title. It is a one-line statement of the news, written in the style of the publications you want to appear in.
- Say what happened. “Northbridge Logistics opens 40,000-square-metre distribution centre in Rotterdam” tells an editor everything. “Northbridge Logistics announces exciting European expansion” tells them nothing.
- Use the present tense and an active verb. Opens, launches, appoints, reports, acquires.
- Keep it to one line, around 70 to 90 characters. If it runs longer, you are trying to say two things.
- No superlatives you cannot prove. “Leading”, “revolutionary” and “game-changing” are the fastest route to the delete key. If your product genuinely is the first of its kind, say precisely what it is the first to do.
- Name the organisation unless the news is bigger than the name. Journalists file by company.
An optional one-sentence subheading can carry a second fact: the scale, the date or the significance. If there is no second fact worth a line, leave it out.
The dateline
The dateline sits at the start of the first paragraph: city, then date, then a dash, then the first sentence. For example: ROTTERDAM, 14 September 2026 — Northbridge Logistics today opened…
It matters more than it looks. The city tells a regional editor whether the story is theirs; the date tells every editor whether it is current. A dateline reading “Global” or “Online” raises the question of where the news actually happened, and a release that raises questions gets set aside. Use the city where the news took place or where the organisation is headquartered, and the date the release is intended for publication.
The lead paragraph
The first paragraph answers the questions a reporter would ask with thirty seconds to spare: who did what, when, where, and why it matters. That means one or two sentences, no more than about 50 words, containing the news and nothing but the news. Compare these two openings.
“Northbridge Logistics, a leading provider of innovative supply-chain solutions, is delighted to announce a significant milestone in its European growth strategy.”
“Northbridge Logistics today opened a 40,000-square-metre distribution centre at the Port of Rotterdam, its first outside the Nordic region, creating 180 jobs and adding overnight delivery to Germany, Belgium and northern France.”
The first says nothing an editor can use; the second could be printed as it stands. That is the test: could a newsroom run your first paragraph, unedited, as the opening of a story?
The body
The second and third paragraphs expand on the lead with the detail a reporter needs to write the story without calling you: the figures, the timeline, the context, the names. Each paragraph should carry one idea and be cuttable without damaging what sits above it.
Keep the register plain. Write “said”, not “commented” or “enthused”. Spell out acronyms on first use. Give figures as numbers with their basis: 180 jobs by the end of 2027, not “hundreds of jobs over time”. A release is a report of something that has happened, written for people whose job is to be sceptical. Every adjective costs credibility, and every claim you cannot back with a fact will be cut or, worse, will sink the whole release.
Quotes that survive editing
Most quotes in press releases are deleted because they say nothing. “We are thrilled to be opening this facility, which represents a fantastic opportunity” gives a reader no information. A quote earns its place when it does something the body copy cannot: it gives an opinion, an interpretation or a human reason. “We chose Rotterdam because two-thirds of our German customers are within four hours of the port, and none of them were getting next-day delivery” sounds like a person and explains a decision.
Use one or two quotes at most, from named people with their exact job titles, attributed with “said”, each in its own paragraph. Make sure the person quoted has approved the words, because a reporter may well ring them.
Boilerplate
The boilerplate is the short “About” paragraph at the end: three or four factual sentences on what the organisation does, where it operates, how big it is and when it was founded. It is the same on every release, so write it once and strip out anything promotional. “Northbridge Logistics is a Nordic road-freight and warehousing group founded in 1998, operating 14 depots in four countries with 2,300 staff” is a boilerplate. “Northbridge Logistics is redefining the future of freight” is not.
British newsrooms often see the boilerplate under a Notes to editors heading, which can also carry the facts that support the story without belonging in it: when the company was founded, how many countries it operates in, the award or the audit that backs a claim made higher up. Close the whole thing with the word ENDS on its own line. It tells an editor that nothing was lost when the release was forwarded between desks.
Contact details
Below the boilerplate, give a named press contact with a direct telephone number, a monitored email address and, for multi-region releases, a time zone. Journalists work to deadlines that do not respect office hours, and an unanswered press line is a lost story.
Say when that person can be reached — “by email at any time, or by telephone during GMT business hours” — and for anything likely to generate calls the same evening, give an out-of-hours number. Brief them first. Whatever they say to a reporter is on the record, and a contact who has not read the release is worse than no contact at all.
Embargoes
An embargo asks journalists not to publish before a set date and time. It is useful when coverage must land at a particular moment, for example when results go to a stock exchange or a product is unveiled at an event. State it clearly at the top: “EMBARGOED UNTIL 07:00 CET, Monday 14 September 2026.” Understand that an embargo is a request, not a contract; most newsrooms honour them, none is obliged to. Do not embargo routine news.
When you distribute through Presswire, tell us the embargo or the future distribution time when you file the release and it goes out then. Otherwise we aim to send it within an hour of receiving it, once it has passed review.
Images and logos
A release with a good image is easier to run. Supply a high-resolution photograph that shows the news, with a caption and a credit, attached or linked rather than pasted into the text. A logo is not a picture and will not be used as one.
Supply two versions of anything you want printed: a web-sized JPEG for online desks and a 300 dpi file for print. Picture desks will ask for headshots of anyone quoted, a logo for each organisation named and, if there is a product, a photograph of it in use — so send those with the release rather than after it. If there is video, embed the web version and say in the release that a broadcast-quality file is available from the press contact.
Length
One page: 350 to 500 words for most announcements, up to 700 for a complex financial or scientific release. If you cannot say it in a page, you are announcing more than one thing, and the second deserves its own release on another day. Presswire does not charge by the word, so length is a question of what the journalist will read, not what it costs to send.
A worked example
The following is a fictional skeleton, labelled as such, to show the shape. Replace every element with your own facts.
Northbridge Logistics opens 40,000-square-metre distribution centre in Rotterdam
First site outside the Nordics brings next-day delivery to Germany, Belgium and northern France
ROTTERDAM, 14 September 2026 — Northbridge Logistics today opened a 40,000-square-metre distribution centre at the Port of Rotterdam, its first outside the Nordic region. The site creates 180 jobs and adds next-day delivery for customers in Germany, Belgium and northern France.
The centre, built over 18 months at a cost of €42 million, handles temperature-controlled and ambient freight and connects directly to the port’s rail terminal. It is expected to reach full capacity of 9,000 pallets a day by the end of 2027.
“We chose Rotterdam because two-thirds of our German customers are within four hours of the port, and none of them were getting next-day delivery,” said Anna Lindqvist, Chief Executive of Northbridge Logistics. “This site closes that gap.”
About Northbridge Logistics Northbridge Logistics is a road-freight and warehousing group founded in Gothenburg in 1998. It operates 15 depots in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands and employs 2,480 people.
Press contact Erik Dahl, Head of Communications, +46 31 000 0000, press@northbridge-example.com (CET)
ENDS
Northbridge Logistics and the people named are fictional and used here only to illustrate structure.
Mistakes that get a release binned
- The news is in paragraph four. Editors do not read to paragraph four.
- No dateline, or a fictional one. “Worldwide, today” is not a place or a time.
- The headline is a slogan. If it could be printed on a banner, it is not a headline.
- Unsupported superlatives. Leading, innovative, world-class, unique.
- A quote that says nothing. Delight, excitement and pride are not information.
- No press contact, or a generic inbox. A story that cannot be checked does not run.
- Wrong audience. A consumer-product release sent to a trade-finance desk wastes everyone’s time.
- One global blast at one hour. A release timed for London breakfast lands in San Francisco at midnight.
Before you press send
A release is a document of record. Once it has gone to a few thousand journalists you cannot take it back, and a correction is a second release that draws attention to the first. Five checks, in this order:
- Someone else reads it. Not the person who wrote it. Typing errors and a sentence that only makes sense to the author are both invisible to the author.
- Every fact against a source. Figures, dates, job titles, the spelling of every name, the legal form of every company. A wrong job title is the sort of error that a journalist notices and remembers.
- Translations by a native speaker who works in that market, not by the software that produced them. A release that reads as translated is not run.
- Technical claims by someone who works in the field. Trade press is read by specialists, and the one sentence a specialist knows is wrong discredits the rest.
- Written approval when it is not your own news. If you are issuing on behalf of a client, get the final text approved by email before it goes. It settles in advance what was authorised, and every agency that has been through a disputed release does this.
Getting it in front of journalists
A well-written release still needs to reach the right people. Presswire sends press releases directly to journalists and editors selected by sector and region, across North America, Europe (including the UK), the UK and Asia, or worldwide in a single order. Before anything goes, one of our editors, all former BBC journalists, reads it and tells you if the structure, headline or content will hurt its chances; nothing is changed without your agreement.
Distribution is $250 (£185 / €220) for one region and $400 (£300 / €350) worldwide, with no membership fee and no charge per word. Every distribution includes that editorial review, publication on presswire.com and our Google News title, and syndication to our content partners. Newsroom-terminal delivery through PA Mediapoint, online syndication to 400+ news sites including the Associated Press network and USA Today, translation, tracking reports and media monitoring are optional extras. Details are on the press release distribution and pricing pages.
What to do after it has gone
Sending is not the end of the work. A tracking report shows which journalists opened the release and which publications they write for, and those are the people worth a short follow-up: one email, offering the interview, the figures behind the number or the photograph that was not attached. Do not resend the release, and do not telephone a newsroom on deadline to ask whether it arrived.
Over a year the reports are worth more than any single piece of coverage. They show which subjects your sector actually opens, which time of day works, and which headlines earn a read — which is how the next release gets written better than the last one.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a press release be?
One page: 350 to 500 words for most announcements, up to 700 for a complex financial or scientific release. If you need more, you have two stories.
What is the correct press release format?
Headline, optional one-line subheading, dateline (city and date), a lead paragraph carrying the whole story, two to four supporting paragraphs, one or two attributed quotes, a factual boilerplate and a named press contact. Mark embargoes at the very top.
Should I write in the first or third person?
Third person throughout, except inside quotation marks. The release is a report about your organisation, not a letter from it.
What types of press release are there?
In practice: announcements (a launch, an opening, a contract), corporate and financial news (results, acquisitions, board appointments), research and data, event and award news, expert commentary on something already in the news, and crisis or corrective statements. The structure below is the same for all of them; what changes is how much of it is settled with lawyers before it is sent.
Do I need approval before issuing a release for a client?
Yes, in writing. Ask the client to approve the final text by email before distribution. It takes a minute and it is the only record of what was authorised.
How do I know whether journalists read it?
A tracking report identifies the journalists who opened the release, with their publication and contact details, so you can follow up the ones who showed interest and compare one release against another over time. Presswire offers it as an option on any distribution.
Can I send the same release to every country?
Not without adjusting it. Spellings, currencies, time zones and the relevance of the story all change by region. Separate circuits for North America, Europe and Asia, each timed for its own morning, get better results than one global blast at a single hour.
Write the release as a journalist would write the story, check it as an editor would check it, and send it to the people who cover your sector. A second pair of professional eyes before it goes is part of every Presswire distribution, and the full rate card is on the pricing page.
Richard Powell has been Public Relations Director of Presswire, the press release distribution and media contact database company, since 2001. This guide brings together Presswire’s earlier writing guides of 2023 and 2024, which now point here.