Press Release Rules

A press release is written to be skimmed in ten seconds by someone deciding whether to keep reading, not to be read start to finish — every structural rule here follows from that one fact, and a release that makes the reader work to find the news gets discarded before the second paragraph.

Inverted pyramid

• Put the single most important fact in the first sentence — who did what, when, and why it matters. Everything after that is decreasing in importance, so a busy editor can cut from the bottom without losing the core story.
• Never save the "real" news for paragraph three as a reveal — journalists don't read for suspense, they skim for the top line and decide in seconds whether the rest is worth their time.
• Structure paragraphs in strict priority order: lead fact, supporting detail and context, quotes, background, boilerplate. If a fact could be cut without changing the story, it belongs lower, not higher.

The newsworthy angle

• Lead with why this matters to the reader or the industry, not why it matters to the company. "Company X raises $10M" is company news; "Startup solves [specific industry problem] with $10M raise" is a story an editor can use.
• Identify the actual news hook before writing: a first, a milestone, a change, a response to something happening in the world. A release with no clear hook ("we're excited to announce our new feature") rarely gets covered regardless of how well it's written.
• Cut anything that reads as internal congratulation rather than external news — "we're thrilled," "proud to announce" — these carry no informational value to a reporter deciding on newsworthiness.

Headline and subhead

• Write the headline as a complete, specific sentence stating the news, not a vague label — "Acme Launches AI Tool That Cuts Invoice Processing Time by 80%," not "Acme Announces New Product."
• Keep the headline under roughly 100 characters — long headlines get truncated in wire feeds, search results, and email subject lines, cutting off exactly the specificity that made it worth reading.
• Use the subhead to add the second-most-important fact the headline couldn't fit — not a rephrasing of the headline, and not a marketing tagline.
• Avoid superlatives and unverifiable claims in the headline ("world's best," "revolutionary") — editors discount them automatically, and some outlets reject releases on the claim alone.

Quotes that sound human

• Write quotes as something a real person would actually say out loud, not as marketing copy with quotation marks around it — read every quote aloud before finalizing it; if it sounds like a slogan, rewrite it.
• Use the quote to add perspective, context, or reaction the facts alone don't carry — not to restate a fact already in the lead paragraph in slightly different words.
• Attribute every quote to a named, credentialed person (title included) — an unnamed "a spokesperson said" quote carries far less weight and reads as evasive.
• Keep quotes short — one to two sentences. A long quote reads as a paragraph the writer didn't want to write in their own voice.

Boilerplate

• Write one standard "About [Company]" paragraph — 2-4 sentences covering what the company does, key facts (founding year, headquarters, notable scale metric), and reuse it verbatim across every release rather than rewriting it each time.
• Keep the boilerplate factual and free of the same marketing adjectives banned from the headline — it's read by people fact-checking the company, not persuading anyone.
• Place the boilerplate at the very bottom, after all news content and contact information — its position signals it's reference material, not part of the story.

What journalists actually skim for

• The first sentence: is there news here, stated plainly, in the first ten words?
• Whether the release answers who/what/when/where/why without requiring a scroll — put all five in the first two paragraphs.
• A named contact with direct email and phone at the bottom — a release without one signals the company isn't actually ready for press inquiries and gets deprioritized.
• Whether there's anything to quote or build a headline from beyond the release's own headline — a release that's all adjectives and no facts gives a journalist nothing to write with.

Formatting and length

• Keep the release to 400-600 words for most announcements — longer than that and even a genuinely interested editor starts skimming past useful detail.
• Use short paragraphs (2-4 sentences) throughout — press releases get scanned, not read linearly, and dense paragraphs are the first thing skipped.
• Include a dateline (city, date) at the top of the body, standard practice that signals a properly formatted release to anyone scanning a wire feed.